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From: fouts@lemming. (Marty Fouts)
Newsgroups: comp.lang.fortran
Subject: Re: Fortran 88
Message-ID: <FOUTS.88Oct21203953@lemming.>
Date: 22 Oct 88 03:39:54 GMT
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In-reply-to: link@stew.ssl.berkeley.edu's message of 21 Oct 88 21:07:04 GMT


In article <15821@agate.BERKELEY.EDU> link@stew.ssl.berkeley.edu (Richard Link) writes:

>   However, I do resent this kind of condescending attitude towards
>   scientists who program. Remember, physicists invented the computer
>   and programming languages. I think we deserve our 2 cents' worth.

I have tracked down this condescending attitude in a lot of
programmers who have worked for / with me over the years, and it is
often a response to a certain kind of arrogant physicist who makes
outrageous claims like "remeber physicists invented the computer and
programming languages." (;-)

Although I assume Dr. Link is not one of these arrogant physicist, I
have frequently had to deal with such.  And with condescending
programmers.  Neither side does the other either good; nor themselves
in the relationship.

For the history books, the invention of the computer (Meaning of
course, the modern stored program digital electronic computer) is lost
in antiquity.  Interesting claims have been made for Macauly/Echert (sp?),
Von Neumann, and Turing, among others.  Not all of the claimed
individuals were pysicists.

Depending on how you defining the invention of programming languages,
you can either give credit to those who did the fundemental work in
computational semantics, such as Church, Turing, Chomsky et. al; or
you can give credit the independent inventors of the first handful of
recognized languages.  The latter batch of people are truely a mixed
bag, and include physicists, mathematicians, the occasional Navy
captain, and even (shudder) computer scientists, although few thought
of themselves as such at the time.  Even the group of people who
invented Fortran weren't all physicists.

Unfortunately, there is a lot of myopia in the physics/engineering
community, which is increased by the condescending attitude taken by
some computer scientists.  (BTW, I'm neither.)  I would like the
physicists to notice that physics isn't the only numerical
programming, and that not even all physics problems get solved the
same way.  I would like programming language bigots to notice that
physicists have real problems to solve, and I would like to see them
talk to each other, not at each other.

But, its Friday night and I/ve been waiting for the Y/MP to come back
up for an hour so I may as well spend my time believing in miracles as
anything else.

Marty
--
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   |        fouts@lemming.nas.nasa.gov                    |
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