Re: Help from fellow Fortran Users

From: Pierre Asselin (pa_at_see.signature.invalid)
Date: 01/28/04 

Date: Wed, 28 Jan 2004 14:56:28 +0000 (UTC)

Richard Maine <nospam@see.signature> wrote:
> Pierre Asselin wrote:
> > I know I'm not making a good case, it's a bit frustrating....

> So why do you care? Nobody here is telling you that you shouldn't
> use whatever tools you find best for your applications, whether
> that includes Fortran or not.

I know, it not that big a deal. I have to use Fortran because that's
what the rest of the team knows. We do number crunching so it should
be a slam-dunk, right? Well, it's not a slam-dunk. I'm just trying
to tell the c.l.f community that something's wrong. I can't pin it
down, but I know something is wrong.

All right, here's another tack. If a bright student contemplating
a scientific career with lots of numerical analysis asked you for
advice on what language to learn, what yould you say? Fortran?

Why learn Fortran? because the compilers optimize better and the
binaries scream. However, in today's world the kid *will* have to
learn another language to do a good job.

Now Robert Tisdale tells us that Blitz++ also screams
(http://www.oonumerics.org/blitz/). Writing (or reading) C++
templates is, shall we say, challenging, but using them is not
going to be that hard. If Blitz++ works, Fortran loses the one
advantage it has over, oh, C++. If C++ can do do the deep number
crunching, but also plug right into a portable GUI with OpenGL
support (http://www.fltk.org/), make any OS calls needed (extern
"C"), handle platform idiosyncracies (judicious #ifdef), interface
to scripting languages (extern "C" + swig) and make you more
employable, what is the point of learning Fortran?

Bah, now I'm starting an advocacy thread. To the newsgroup: downplay
the advocacy, but: aren't you worried? 

--
pa at panix dot com

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