Path: utzoo!mnetor!uunet!husc6!bloom-beacon!mit-eddie!ll-xn!ames!elroy!mahendo!jplgodo!wlbr!scgvaxd!trwrb!trwspp!spp3!simpson
From: simpson@spp3.UUCP (Scott Simpson)
Newsgroups: comp.software-eng
Subject: Re: Cynic's Guide to Software Engineering, part 3
Message-ID: <500@spp3.UUCP>
Date: 19 Apr 88 04:13:29 GMT
References: <1950@rtech.UUCP> <945@nuchat.UUCP> <39544UH2@PSUVM>
Reply-To: simpson@spp3.UUCP (Scott Simpson)
Distribution: na
Organization: TRW Inc., Redondo Beach, CA
Lines: 24

In article <39544UH2@PSUVM> UH2@PSUVM.BITNET (Lee Sailer) writes:
>Except for COMPLEX variables, I have never been able to see why FORTRAN
>is better than C, Pascal, ALGOL, etc etc etc for "scientific" programming.
>
>I have always been bothered, too, that by not putting a Complex type
>and its associated operators in the language, C and other modern
>languages have thumbed there noses at physical scientists.

FORTRAN is often used because it is fast.  It has no dynamic allocation and 
passes arrays by reference.  Unfortunately is doesn't support parallelism 
well.  OCCAM attempted to solve that problem.  Some of FORTRAN other problems
include
    - Implicit declaration
    - No spaces required
    - Card oriented
This list is obviously not exhaustive.

C++ and Ada allow you define new types so complex numbers need not be built
in.
-- 
	Scott Simpson
	TRW Space and Defense Sector
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