Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP Path: utzoo!mnetor!uunet!husc6!mit-eddie!ll-xn!ames!ucbcad!ucbvax!HT.AI.MIT.EDU!hamscher From: hamscher@HT.AI.MIT.EDU (Walter Hamscher) Newsgroups: comp.ai.digest Subject: In Defense of FORTRAN Message-ID: <8711051446.AA00712@ht.ai.mit.edu> Date: Thu, 5-Nov-87 09:46:20 EST Article-I.D.: ht.8711051446.AA00712 Posted: Thu Nov 5 09:46:20 1987 Date-Received: Wed, 11-Nov-87 04:44:22 EST Sender: daemon@ucbvax.BERKELEY.EDU Organization: The ARPA Internet Lines: 24 Approved: ailist@kl.sri.com In any discussion where C and Fortran are defended as languages for doing AI, if only they provided the constructs that Lisp and Prolog already provide, I am reminded of the old Yiddish saying (here poorly transliterated) ``Wenn mein Bubba zul huben Bietzem, vol tzi gevain mein Zayda.'' Or, loosely, ``IF is a big word.'' Date: Mon 2 Nov 87 14:29:09-PST From: Ken Laws * * * The problem with AI languages is neither their capability nor their efficiency, but the way that they limit thought. * * * Exactly so. Using Fortran or any language where you have to spend mental energy thinking about the issues that Lisp and Prolog already handle ``cuts your chances of fame and fortune from the discovery of the one true path,'' to quote an earlier contributor. Fortran's a fine language for writing programs where the problem is well understood, but it's just a lousy language for tackling new problems in. This doesn't just go for academic research, either; same goes for doing applications that have never been tackled before.