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From: geoff@desint.UUCP (Geoff Kuenning)
Newsgroups: net.lang.f77,net.unix,net.unix-wizards,net.lang
Subject: Re: Any decent Fortrans under Unix ? Which machine ?
Message-ID: <161@desint.UUCP>
Date: Sat, 1-Mar-86 02:09:30 EST
Article-I.D.: desint.161
Posted: Sat Mar  1 02:09:30 1986
Date-Received: Sun, 2-Mar-86 19:44:23 EST
References: <210@bu-cs.UUCP>
Reply-To: geoff@desint.UUCP (Geoff Kuenning)
Organization: SAH Consulting, Manhattan Beach, CA
Lines: 19
Xref: watmath net.lang.f77:480 net.unix:7264 net.unix-wizards:17030 net.lang:2177

In article <210@bu-cs.UUCP> bzs@bu-cs.UUCP (Barry Shein) writes:

> What good is it to have a great optimizer on a slow machine?

The problem people are forgetting here is numerical accuracy.  As Gene
Spafford pointed out a few months back, there are *no* current Unix
Fortrans that have numerically accurate libraries (I/O is, as usual,
especially weak).  Many people stick with their Cray, CDC, or DEC Fortran
because those companies have put many buckos into accuracy, unlike Bell
Labs who merely dabbled in it.  I have no doubt AT&T will eventually
correct this problem on the 3B line, but since it's highly machine-dependent
(is the 3B IEEE?) AT&T's good work will not automatically carry over to
all the private-hardware vendors.

What good is it to have a speedier machine if the answers are wrong?
-- 

	Geoff Kuenning
	{hplabs,ihnp4}!trwrb!desint!geoff