Mailinglist Archive: opensuse-programming (84 mails)

[Jerry Feldman <gaf@xxxxxxx>]

On Tue, 31 Aug 2004 14:30:22 GMT
Colin Carter <colincarter@xxxxxxxxxx> wrote:

> C++ programmers tend to be 'function orientated' whereas FTN
> programmers tend to be 'in line' orientated.  Perhaps it is
> often a matter of programming style which makes the most
> difference.
> But one must always keep in mind two things:
> these days many languages are initially, partially compiled
> down to the same pseudo-language for a latter step, and
> FOTRAN has been under development by very (and I mean very)
> experienced people for a very long time and scientific 
> programmers still turn to FORTRAN.

One reason that FORTRAN has lasted so long (as it is one of the earliest
high level languages) is that there is a tremendous body of scientific
programs and libraries written in FORTRAN, and the compiler people have
been able to very aggressively optimize the code. Another advantage is
that there are many built-in features of FORTRAN that tend to generate
inline code where C and C++ result in library calls. 

(aside: I think that LISP is the oldest computer language because it was
invented before the computer).
-- 
Jerry Feldman <gaf@xxxxxxx>
Boston Linux and Unix user group
http://www.blu.org PGP key id:C5061EA9
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