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From: brnstnd@kramden.acf.nyu.edu (Dan Bernstein)
Newsgroups: comp.lang.misc
Subject: Re: Fortran vs. C for numerical work
Message-ID: <26349:Dec404:38:5790@kramden.acf.nyu.edu>
Date: 4 Dec 90 04:38:57 GMT
References: <7339@lanl.gov> <1990Nov30.163613.9562@alchemy.chem.utoronto.ca> <763@ubbpc.UUCP>
Organization: IR
Lines: 20

In article <763@ubbpc.UUCP> wgh@ubbpc.UUCP (William G. Hutchison) writes:
>  (2) C programmers mostly work on micros, workstations, or minicomputers,
>      so they are not acquainted with pipelining, vectorizing, parallel
>      processing, etc., so they do not know what they are missing by using C.

You may be right, but I doubt your generalizations apply to *numerical*
programmers who happen to use C. I'd certainly feel quite restricted
without the network facilities I use (from C) to handle large-scale
parallel processing. And I regularly use a minisuper and a supermini
with state-of-the art vectorizing and pipelining respectively.

>  (1) Stop doing numerical work [ :-) ]
>  (2) Find or develop a language suitable for this sort of work.
>  Perhaps most practicioners would prefer solution (2) ???
> I like your suggestion of Turing.  Have you looked at Eiffel?  I am also 
> investigating Occam.  Any opinions on this?

I've found C good enough. Why should I switch?

---Dan


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