From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 X-Spam-Checker-Version: SpamAssassin 3.4.5-pre1 (2020-06-20) on ip-172-31-74-118.ec2.internal X-Spam-Level: X-Spam-Status: No, score=0.8 required=3.0 tests=BAYES_50 autolearn=ham autolearn_force=no version=3.4.5-pre1 Date: 30 Aug 93 17:55:46 GMT From: agate!usenet.ins.cwru.edu!magnus.acs.ohio-state.edu!math.ohio-state.edu!s ol.ctr.columbia.edu!news.kei.com!ub!netfs!news@ucbvax.Berkeley.EDU (DON BERRYM AN) Subject: Re: Computational scientists ignoring and ignored by Ada Message-ID: <1993Aug30.175546.23413@netfs.dnd.ca> List-Id: In srctran@world.std.com writes: > > One area that Ada has had no luck in penetrating (or more particularly, > one area where the Ada community has had no interest in penetrating), is > that of the Computational Science community, which until quite recently was Well we are attempting to use Ada for just this. So Ada is not being totally ignored. I think the biggest problem is that Computational Computing is often done by Scientist who are not Programmers and self taught themselves FORTRAN back when there were card punches. Unfortunately Ada is not easy for them to learn, and they almost have no desire to learn whats not directly needed for them to do their job, Science not Programming. If I could only get them to write good FORTRAN code I'd be happy. The other problem is that SOME Ada compilers do not generate Numerical code as good as FORTRAN. For example from one Ada compiler the code takes 1.5 times longer than FORTRAN, and with another compule 3 TIMES longer. This gives Ada a bad name. I get around this by coding the main structure of the program in Ada and the Number Crunching Loops in FORTRAN. Its not what I'd like to do but it gives me the performance I need. Don Berryman Defence Research Establishment Pacific Canadian Forces Base Esquimalt Victoria, BC, CANADA, V0S-1B0 604-363-2731 604-363-2856fax berryman@orca.drep.dnd.ca