Newsgroups: comp.lang.fortran
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From: john@spectre.unm.edu (John Prentice)
Subject: Re: FORTRAN vs. "PC languages"
References: <31746@rouge.usl.edu>
Distribution: usa
Organization: Dept. of Math & Stat, University of New Mexico, Albuquerque
Message-ID: <1991May26.015347.14476@ariel.unm.edu>
Date: Sun, 26 May 91 01:53:47 GMT
Lines: 30

In article <31746@rouge.usl.edu> ldl6737@rouge.usl.edu (Lafleur L Dwynn) writes:
>
>I am posting this message to stimulate an exchange of opinions between FORTRAN
>users about the advisability and experiences of switching to other languages.
>What do you think?
>

There are lots of valid arguments pro and con concerning Fortran, but I think
if you want to perfectly honest about it, the main reason scientists don't
switch from Fortran is twofold.  First, most scientists know virtually 
nothing about computers (though alot talk a great line).  So they use what
they have been led to believe is the language of scientists, namely Fortran.
For those few who seem to actually know more about computers than just how
to use the mail utility, I think alot of them stay with Fortran because their
needs are simple and Fortran suits them fine.  For the minority who are
doing serious computational science, there is considerable ferment over
whether Fortran is now or will the future be the language to use.  But those
people doing really serious work with computers are a minority, at least
in physics (mind you, I am talking about people >really< doing work, not
the many who talk about it but actually no next to nothing other than the
jargon).  None of this says anything about whether Fortran is a good or
a bad language, it says loads about scientists however.

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