Path: utzoo!censor!geac!torsqnt!hybrid!scifi!bywater!uunet!dev8h.mdcbbs.com!campbell
From: campbell@dev8h.mdcbbs.com (Tim Campbell)
Newsgroups: comp.lang.fortran
Subject: Re: VMS vs. Unix Fortran
Message-ID: <1991Mar1.103001.1@dev8h.mdcbbs.com>
Date: 1 Mar 91 10:30:01 GMT
References: <592@siswat.UUCP> <1991Feb27.170224.20411@lpi.liant.com>
Organization: McDonnell Douglas M&E, Cypress CA
Lines: 64
Nntp-Posting-Host: dev8h
Nntp-Posting-User: campbell

In article <1991Feb27.170224.20411@lpi.liant.com>, rcg@lpi.liant.com (Rick Gorton) writes:
> In article <592@siswat.UUCP> buck@siswat.UUCP (A. Lester Buck) writes:
>>His friends tell him that switching from VMS
>>Fortran to any Unix Fortran cuts productivity in half for Fortran
>>development, so he is leaning heavily toward purchasing a VAXstation
>>instead of a fast, cheap Unix box.
>>
>>Is there really no acceptable Fortran development environment
>>under Unix?  Are the Unix Fortran debuggers that bad?  If anyone
>>has any first hand experience, I would really appreciate hearing
>>about your opinions.
>>
>>A. Lester Buck    buck@siswat.lonestar.org  ...!uhnix1!lobster!siswat!buck
> 
> Do your friends friends work for the company that makes VAXen?	:-)
> Do they use VMS on a daily basis, or do they actually use UNIX?

I was thinking the same thing.

> I would like to think that our FORTRAN compiler and CodeWatch debugger
> are an excellent choice for your friend, but please note that
> I work on our SPARC code generator, so my focus is on the correctness
> and performance of the FORTRAN code rather than on the development
> environment/productivity issues.

> Richard Gorton               rcg@lpi.liant.com  (508) 626-0006
> Language Processors, Inc.    Framingham, MA 01760
> Hey!  This is MY opinion.  Opinions have little to do with corporate policy.
-- 
Richard:

On a VAX, the debugger can run in a graphical or text environment.  Even in
the text environment, it sets up a 3 or 4 part screen to show code,
output, commands, etc.

CodeWatch has all the functionality, but it lacks the "window" style 
environment. - You tell the debugger to list a few lines of code, and after
a few commands, it's scrolled off the screen and you have to tell it to 
list more.  DBX has the same problem, but Sun fixed this with the DBXTool to
provide the graphical/window interface to dbx.  I was really hoping to find
the same functionality for CodeWatch.

I don't use LPI/Fortran (but I have evaluated it), I have however used the 
PL/I compiler quite a bit - it's probably by far the best PL/I implementation
available on a workstation.

I had to give up using LPI/Fortran because as I recall, it had problems linking
with code produced by Sun C (it extended function names with underscores on
both sides and I think Sun extended the names with underscores only to the 
left.  I thought this was odd because LPI-PL/I seems to have no trouble 
linking to Sun C. 

PC's easily have the debugger market sewn up.  There's absolutely no debugger
in existence which can compare with either the Borland or Microsoft 
integrated debugging/development environments.  If you really want to have
the best workstation debugger, take a lesson from one of these guys.

  ---------------------------------------------------------------------------
	  In real life:  Tim Campbell - Electronic Data Systems Corp.
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