Path: utzoo!attcan!uunet!abcfd20.larc.nasa.gov!eagle.larc.nasa.gov!u714092 From: u714092@eagle.larc.nasa.gov (prichard devon ) Newsgroups: comp.lang.fortran Subject: Re: a secular response to the religious conflict Message-ID: Date: 10 Dec 90 22:08:56 GMT References: <27304.27610742@kuhub.cc.ukans.edu> <6910@uceng.UC.EDU> <14699@smoke.brl.mil> Sender: news@abcfd20.larc.nasa.gov (USENET File Owner) Followup-To: comp.lang.fortran Organization: Lockheed Engineering & Sciences Co. Lines: 49 In-Reply-To: gwyn@smoke.brl.mil's message of 10 Dec 90 19:55:58 GMT In article <14699@smoke.brl.mil> gwyn@smoke.brl.mil (Doug Gwyn) writes: Xref: abcfd20.larc.nasa.gov comp.lang.fortran:1010 comp.lang.c:4411 Path: abcfd20.larc.nasa.gov!elroy.jpl.nasa.gov!usc!cs.utexas.edu!yale!cmcl2!adm!smoke!gwyn From: gwyn@smoke.brl.mil (Doug Gwyn) Newsgroups: comp.lang.fortran,comp.lang.c Date: 10 Dec 90 19:55:58 GMT References: <27304.27610742@kuhub.cc.ukans.edu> <6910@uceng.UC.EDU> Followup-To: comp.lang.fortran Organization: U.S. Army Ballistic Research Laboratory, APG, MD. Lines: 13 C is so much more suited to general applications than Fortran that limiting one's attention to science/engineering applications would produce a quite imperfect understanding of how to exploit the language. ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ precisely the point of the current flame war; I'm not paid to exploit the features of a programming language. I am paid to develop aerodynamic/ aeroacoustic prediction methods. of course, in the fastest and cheapest means possible. for 95% of my problems requiring the use of the computer to solve them, Fortran has been the tool to use. it has not yet become cost effective for me to really learn any other programming language; the 5% which Fortran does not address well are either; hacked with Fortran, reformulated to a more easily solved problem, or not solved. the average engineer ain't sitting around with his thumb up his *ss looking for new problems; he's trying to make time to solve the many drudge tasks already on his desk (same for female engineers, of course :) ). the two areas where, with C for example, another language does better than Fortran, are; databasing of large amounts of experimental data, and graphics/visualization. and the databases we have can be 1-2 GB per run of a flyover test. implicit double of C don't cut it there, either. from a cost basis, until someone writes a new engineering-oriented programming language that can be learned in 1-2 quarters in university, is fast etc. like Fortran, then few employers will pay bucks to migrate their programming to another language. after all, not only is there the cost of training all those engineers, but the down time when they aren't working. in my case, even if someone picked up my salary for two months and sent me to class, my supers wouldn't allow it, stuff's gotta get done. and I'm not that important relative to the other grunts in my dept. -- |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||| | Devon Prichard making the world safe for helicopters ... | | u714092@eagle.larc.nasa.gov, prichard@ias.larc.nasa.gov | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||