Path: utzoo!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!cs.utexas.edu!asuvax!ncar!unmvax!bbx!mimas!mcn
From: mcn@mimas.UUCP (Michael C. Neuman)
Newsgroups: comp.edu
Subject: Re: Language Use
Keywords: C,Ada,Pascal,C++,Other?
Message-ID: <3s3wy4w163w@mimas.UUCP>
Date: 16 Mar 91 19:32:37 GMT
References: <1991Mar15.134054.6830@pdn.paradyne.com>
Organization: Albuquerque Academy, Albuquerque NM
Lines: 44

reggie@paradyne.com (George W. Leach) writes:

> 	I teach part-time, in the evenings at a junior college.  I am 
> teaching for the Engineering Technology Department, so my focus is
> different.  They still require FORTRAN, but we also offer a C course
> for which the FORTRAN course is the prerequisite.  I have heard some
> rumblings about the FORTRAN requirement going away, but I have not
> heard what it would be replaced with.  Some say a general course in
> using CAD packages, and other tools.  But I just can't see all of an
> engineer's computing needs being served by this approach.  Not everything
> fits into such nice, neat solutions.  I advise my students to learn both
> FORTRAN and C, unless they know for sure what area of engineering they
> want to go into.
> 
   With my experience in the "real world", FORTRAN is nearly a 
prerequisite to doing anything with engineering. At Los Alamos National 
Labs, the majority of programmers use FORTRAN for several reasons:

1) It's nearly as easy as BASIC to learn which means that the scientist 
can get down to the problem rather than messing with the programming 
technicalities.
2) The compilers for the Crays and Connection Machines automagically
vectorize and parallelize fortran code, whereas C has to be "forced" by 
the programmer to multitask.

  However, on both systems, FORTRAN is less effecient. A piece of well 
written C code will outperform the FORTRAN stuff easily. Unfortunately, 
the scientists who are using the machines to do their work don't have 
time to learn the intricasies of a programming language, and thus will 
stick to FORTRAN.

  Thus, my advice: learn them both. If you want to be a programmer, learn 
C, if you want to be an engineer, learn FORTRAN. If you're not sure, 
learn both of them. C is hard to learn, FORTRAN just requires knowledge 
of BASIC.


<<<===========================--------==============================>>>
<<<  Mike Neuman                 ||     Senior Systems Programmer   >>>
<<<  mimas!mcn@bbx.basis.com     ||      Albuquerque Academy        >>>
<<<  mcn@beta.lanl.gov           ||      Computer Science Division  >>>
<<<===========================--------==============================>>>
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