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From: diamond@diamond.csl.sony.junet (Norman Diamond)
Newsgroups: comp.lang.c,comp.lang.fortran
Subject: Re: Calling FORTRAN from C (Was: Need matrix inversion C routine).
Message-ID: <10228@socslgw.csl.sony.JUNET>
Date: 8 May 89 05:12:19 GMT
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In article <17333@mimsy.UUCP> chris@mimsy.UUCP (Chris Torek) writes:

>It is clear that no one language standard can constrain any *other*
>language, and that therefore no one standard (for Fortran, C, PL/I,
>APL, Lisp, DDL, rog-o-matic, or whatever) can require inter-language
>calls.  It requires an inter-language standard to do this.

True

>Good luck on getting together an inter-language standard ... you will
>certainly need it.

When DEC did exactly this, around 10 years ago, luck did not seem to be
part of it.  Of course, they had trouble integrating C with the rest of
it, because other languages only specified WHAT gets done by various
language constructs, but K&R added HOW it must be done for their
language.  (This must be the ultimate worst mistake that K&R made in
their specification of the C language.)  However, some wheels do not
really require re-invention, nor do they require luck if you want to
read about the existing invention before doing yours.

Seems a lot of people hate DEC because DEC learned their lessons before
everyone else did....

--
Norman Diamond, Sony Computer Science Lab (diamond%csl.sony.co.jp@relay.cs.net)
  The above opinions are my own.   |  Why are programmers criticized for
  If they're also your opinions,   |  re-inventing the wheel, when car
  you're infringing my copyright.  |  manufacturers are praised for it?