Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!cs.utexas.edu!swrinde!zaphod.mps.ohio-state.edu!sdd.hp.com!hplabs!hpfcso!mjs
From: mjs@hpfcso.HP.COM (Marc Sabatella)
Newsgroups: comp.lang.misc
Subject: Re: Learning other languages (Was: Fortran vs. C for numerical work)
Message-ID: <8960031@hpfcso.HP.COM>
Date: 6 Dec 90 17:05:48 GMT
References: <13457@chaph.usc.edu>
Organization: Hewlett-Packard, Fort Collins, CO, USA
Lines: 19

>     C on the other hand was not designed for math.  It was designed for
>systems programming and any other use is incidental.  It's not so much
>that C is difficult, it's that its syntax is unnatural for scientific
>programming.  C is a lovely language if you're writing an OS.  I think
>that those of us who say that we don't want to learn C because it's
>"difficult" really mean this: C is not particularly well-suited to our
>purposes so that beating our problem into C would be quite a chore.

But what makes you say this?  About the only significant difference in syntax
(as far as translating mathemetical formulae) is that C has no exponentiation
operator; instead you must call a library function.  Other than that, why is

	C = SQRT( SIN(X) + LOG(Y) )

perceived to be more "natural" than

	c = sqrt( sin(x) + log(y) );

?