Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!rpi!zaphod.mps.ohio-state.edu!sdd.hp.com!spool.mu.edu!news.cs.indiana.edu!ariel.unm.edu!triton.unm.edu!prentice From: prentice@triton.unm.edu (John Prentice) Newsgroups: comp.lang.fortran Subject: Re: Fortran 90 status Message-ID: <1991Apr26.210247.17264@ariel.unm.edu> Date: 26 Apr 91 21:02:47 GMT Article-I.D.: ariel.1991Apr26.210247.17264 References: <1991Apr24.202115.16119@dragon.wpd.sgi.com> <123207.25873@timbuk.cray.com> Organization: University of New Mexico, Albuquerque, NM Lines: 33 I read all these postings today with interest. Several things struck me. First, the late 1990's is too long to have to wait for compilers to finally implement features long available in other languages like C. I have to question whether Fortran Extended is really worth waiting for or if the time hasn't come to switch to something else. Second, the discussion on efficiency continues to skirt what I would regard as the major issue in scientific computing - parallelism. What about Fortran Extended is going to improve performance on parallel systems, of whatever type? I guess the real question is: is there any convincing argument for staying with Fortran for new compute intensive parallel codes, much less waiting 10 years for someone to finally write me a compiler for it? That is not a rhetorical question, we are in the middle of an enormous software project and this issue is getting serious for us. In the past I have defended Fortran pretty seriously, but I have got to tell people, it looks more and more like it is getting left behind by the sweeping technical advances occuring in high performance computing. The standardization debates are focusing on standardizing practices that have been around now for years, as they should. But in the meantime the needs of the scientific programmer are changing very quickly and if the language is slow to change, it may very well become obsolete. I say this while noting that no other language seems to me to have established itself the clear winner for high performance computing, particularly on massively parallel systems. But I don't see Fortran even being in the running at the moment. If there are arguments I am missing, I would like to hear them. John -- John K. Prentice john@unmfys.unm.edu (Internet) Dept. of Physics and Astronomy, University of New Mexico, Albuquerque, NM, USA Computational Physics Group, Amparo Corporation, Albuquerque, NM, USA