Path: utzoo!utgpu!water!watmath!clyde!bellcore!faline!ulysses!allegra!princeton!udel!gatech!hao!ames!amdcad!sun!pitstop!sundc!seismo!uunet!nuchat!flatline!sugar!peter
From: peter@sugar.UUCP
Newsgroups: comp.lang.misc
Subject: Re: Discussions of languages (Was: Re: Modern langauges)
Message-ID: <1416@sugar.UUCP>
Date: 24 Jan 88 08:29:24 GMT
References: <2553@enea.UUCP> <2200002@hpesrgd.HP.COM> <485@m10ux.UUCP>
Organization: Sugar Land UNIX - Houston, TX
Lines: 36
Posted: Sun Jan 24 03:29:24 1988

In article <485@m10ux.UUCP>, rgr@m10ux.UUCP (Duke Robillard) writes:
> In article <2200002@hpesrgd.HP.COM> mic@hpesrgd.HP.COM (Marc Clarke) writes:
> >> What other language is available on everything from a PC up to a Cray?

> >Ada?

> FORTRAN?

> LISP?

> Maybe we ought to list those which aren't instead...

Maybe we should ask a more resonable question:

What other language provides a reasonably efficient O/S interface that's
applicable to just about any operating system for everything from a PC up
to a Cray?

Writing system software in Fortran involves encapsulating ALL the system
calls and changing them every time you switch to a new O/S, or putting up
with the slowness of Fortran's I/O library. The Software Tools package
does the former but provides a slow version that uses the latter approach
to get the first cut working quickly.

Other, more recent, languages avoid the problem of inefficient I/O libraries
by underspecifying the O/S interface.

C specifies an interface (stream character files) that can be implemented
fairly painlessly on a wide variety of machines, provides most of the stuff
that high level system software (compilers, filters, editors, etc...) need,
and is efficient enough that only extremely weird systems encourage programmers
to roll their own. Could microEmacs have been written in (say) Fortran and
still have as much performance and portability?
-- 
-- Peter da Silva  `-_-'  ...!hoptoad!academ!uhnix1!sugar!peter
-- Disclaimer: These U aren't mere opinions... these are *values*.