Re: just how bad is Fortran?

[Syrus Nemat-Nasser <syrus@ucsd.edu>]

On Tue, 22 Jul 1997, Adriano Nagelschmidt Rodrigues wrote:

> Sorry, I can't resist ;-)

Me either. ;-)

> fortran (77) is horrible. Well, it _was_ ok, Backus was a pioneer, etc. But we
> are in the end of the '90s (and I thought only *my* profs were forcing
> students to use it!)
> 
> You will be much better writing your code in ANSI C (pointers aren't difficult
> once you get to know them).

This is plainly untrue.  f77 is a much simpler command set with no 
dynamic allocation, etc.  As a result, a f77 compiler can be optimized to 
a much greater extent independent of the coding expertise of the 
programmer, i.e. me.  Thus, f77 is almost always faster than c or c++.  
Also, in ansi C, there is no intrisic or optimized support for complex 
numbers.  People who actually do intensive simulations where compile time 
is not a critical factor can still benefit from using f77.  f90 is 
another matter, meaning that I no nothing about its efficiency.

Thanks.  Syrus.

-- 

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Syrus Nemat-Nasser <syrus@ucsd.edu>    UCSD Physics Dept.



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