Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!mailrus!csd4.milw.wisc.edu!bionet!ig!ames!oliveb!sun!chiba!khb
From: khb%chiba@Sun.COM (Keith Bierman - SPD Languages Marketing -- MTS)
Newsgroups: comp.lang.fortran
Subject: Re: Responses to M. Shapiro & K. Bierma
Message-ID: <100921@sun.Eng.Sun.COM>
Date: 25 Apr 89 02:52:45 GMT
References: <24091@beta.lanl.gov> <44400037@hcx2>
Sender: news@sun.Eng.Sun.COM
Reply-To: khb@sun.UUCP (Keith Bierman - SPD Languages Marketing -- MTS)
Organization: Sun Microsystems, Mountain View
Lines: 81

In article <44400037@hcx2> it is written:
>
....lots of stuff deleted
>> the last 5 years or so, the language has seemed increasingly inadequate
>> for many of the applications that arise.  I've been driven to work
>> in Pascal and c (and starting to be pushed into Ada).
>
>... more deleted
>
> I don't believe everyone should be put in the same cubbyhole and
>forced to use one language.

True, but everyone who is doing _primarily_ numeric computation (no
matter what the application area (biology, physics, etc.) SHOULD be
using the same langauge. We don't have _radically_ different matrix
theory for each field.... (all the linear algebra holds, why shouldn't
our libraries ?)

Almost everyone has interlanguage horror stories.... simply asserting
that we should have a large pool of "small" languages is not adequate
for 90% of the folks _I_ deal with...

>
>But what about those users for whom performance is THE most important
>feature? 

These folks really, really benefit big from good libraries. With easy
to learn and use interfaces; with really ugly stuff hidden. The
proposed standard has much to serve library writers....library users
don't need to know how it is done, just that it is done well.

>that met their needs.  They (at least, many of them) ARE NOT willing to
>give up performance.  Again, you show a tendency to want to force everyone
>to accept the same language, just because you think it is best.  How would
>you like it if someone else said, "You must eat nothing but wild porcupine,
>because I like wild porcupine."?

Or if someone told me I have to write every algorithm from Givens
rotations to Singular value decompositions sixteen different ways for
EACH machine ?

>Many times I have heard the statement that "FORTRAN must evolve or die".
>Rubbish.  First, it presumes that FORTRAN dying is a bad thing; if no one
>uses it, it certainly will die, but then, who will miss it?  If many people
>continue to use it, then it won't die.  Second, it presumes that FORTRAN
>must "compete" with other languages.  Again, rubbish.  Do hammers compete
>with axes? 

No, but a hand____ does compete with an electric ____ (fill in one of
the following: saw, drill, screwdriver, your favorite garage tool).

> If someone complains that his axe doesn't make a very good
>hammer, would you try to modify the axe?  I hope not.  Languages are tools;
>they are invented because there is a need, and no other language serves
>that need.  I think the need for a language like FORTRAN/77 still exists,
>and so that language should continue to exist.  If there is a need for a
>language like FORTRAN/8x, then by all means, let it be, but don't take away
>a tool that is still very much needed.  FORTRAN/8x should be treated like
>any new language; it should stand or fall on its own merits.

The lure of f8x is that it allows one to leverage the huge existing
software base. An entirely new language could be cleaner, but much
less useful.

>
>I personally applaud the approach taken by the PL/1 standards committee.
>They said, in effect, "Standardize the language the first time, and revise
>it once to correct any errors, then leave it alone."

Good example. PL/1 cost implementors a bundle, and required a huge
user investment...which is now mostly worthless. 

Let's try to _not_ emulate the mistakes of others.


Cheers

Keith H. Bierman      |*My thoughts are my own. Only my work belongs to Sun*
It's Not My Fault     |	Marketing Technical Specialist 
I Voted for Bill &    |   Languages and Performance Tools. 
Opus            (* strange as it may seem, I do more engineering now     *)