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From: john@ghostwheel.unm.edu (John Prentice)
Newsgroups: comp.lang.misc
Subject: Re: Fortran vs. C for numerical work - expression notation
Message-ID: <1990Dec10.023332.15164@ariel.unm.edu>
Date: 10 Dec 90 02:33:32 GMT
References: <16798@csli.Stanford.EDU> <8339@lanl.gov> <914:Dec923:50:2990@kramden.acf.nyu.edu>
Sender: John K. Prentice
Organization: University of New Mexico Math Dept., Albuquerque, NM
Lines: 22

In article <914:Dec923:50:2990@kramden.acf.nyu.edu> brnstnd@kramden.acf.nyu.edu (Dan Bernstein) writes:
>
>Jim, how is a**b more ``standard mathematical notation'' than pow(a,b)?
>How is a.gt.b more ``standard mathematical notation'' than a > b?
>
It is sort of obvious isn't it?  To use LaTex format, one writes 
exponentiation as x^{y} in normal mathematical notation
(at least they did where I went to school).  Thus I would agree that
a**b is "more natural" than pow(a,b).  Once you are used to it, either
notation is fine I suppose, but you have to admit that the a**b form
is the "more natural".  I could always say something like "Fortran a
computer language is" instead of "Fortran is a computer language".
Either one works, but which would YOU prefer?  I agree with Jim on this one.

>Most professional Fortran programmers groan when they hear that
>Fortran 8X (oops, 9X) has a > b. Maybe ``standard mathematical
>notation'' isn't as important as familiar notation...

We must know different professional Fortran programmers.  I have never 
heard anyone make this comment.

John