C vs. Fortran (half OT questions)

Hi all,
I've been always told of the C language as the best choice
to accomplish any kind of task in numerical algorithms implementation.
I'd like to do some serious programming in numerical analysis and
I'd like to read some opinion about whether C has too many limitations
or it is far a better choice than Fortran is. I have some questions
that may seem trivial and not topical to this group (I'll post the same
questions in comp.lang.fortran as well, I promise). Here they are:

1 -- is there any reason not to learn Fortran (a new language for me)
and focus on C (and C numerical libraries) potentialities?

2 -- is Fortran considered the best choice in this field only because
of its construct and syntax that makes easier to handle
mathematical entities?

3 -- what about the Standard IEEE 754 (IEC 60559:1989) conformance?
is that intrinsecal to the language or the implementation?
which language can offer a full support to the IEEE Standard,
C or Fortran?

4 -- what about performance? would you bet on C or Fortran? :-)


Thank you in advance.

--
Vincenzo Mercuri
.

Relevant Pages

  • Re: Surprise
    ... haven't seen any Fortran libraries that do that. ... Libraries are a huge part of the reason why one language would be ...
    (comp.lang.fortran)
  • Re: one-liner for characater replacement
    ... convert to another language. ... upgrade to upward compatible versions of the same language. ... Under the above rules of the game, unless the Fortran world announces ...  The user base has not shrunk all that much. ...
    (comp.lang.fortran)
  • Re: interpretive vs. compiled
    ... for specific needs in FORTRAN. ... Nowadays, workstations are also available to engineers, and there's no ... Excel/VBA and much less exposure to programming. ... colleges are wondering what language to use in classes. ...
    (comp.programming)
  • Re: Help from fellow Fortran Users
    ... and Fortran in which he introduced the subject of Pascal, ... Pascal is a useful, high-level, portable language that is easy to use ... Inasmuch as his comments considered extensions for Pascal in the '70s, ... standard differs from ...
    (comp.lang.fortran)
  • Re: A petition to J3 apropos FORTRANs future
    ... Fortran folded like an accordion and gave ... The vast majority of programmers are not doing "scientific ... In theory, programmers would just "use the best language for the job", ... But there are reasons, both real and silly, why one ...
    (comp.lang.fortran)