Re: Why is Ada considered "too specialized" for scientific use

[csampson@inetworld.net (Charles H. Sampson)]

Nasser M. Abbasi <nma@12000.org> wrote:

> I was browsing the net for scientific software written in Ada, and came
> across this strange statement:
> 
> http://farside.ph.utexas.edu/teaching/329/lectures/node7.html
> 
> "Scientific programming languages
> What is the best high-level language to use for scientific programming?
> This, unfortunately, is a highly contentious question. Over the years,
> literally hundreds of high-level languages have been developed. However, few
> have stood the test of time. Many languages (e.g., Algol, Pascal, Haskell)
> can be dismissed as ephemeral computer science fads. Others (e.g., Cobol,
> Lisp, Ada) are too specialized to adapt for scientific use.

     This statement comes purely from ignorance.  Any person seriously
interested in good scientific programming who would take the time to
learn what Ada has to offer would find that it is superb for scientific
programming.

     Has anyone written a paper "Ada for Scientific Programming"?  I
envision such a paper as having all of the tasking-related stuff
stripped out and a heavy emphasis on the numerical issues.  Probably the
distributed programming stuff could be eliminated too; I'm not sure.  A
Paul Hilfinger comes to mind.

> 
> ......
> 
> The remaining options are FORTRAN 77 and C. I have chosen to use C"

     Both of which can be used to create programs that continue to
happily compute in the presence of incorrect data.  Sigh.
> 
> I find this strange, because I think Ada can be the best programming 
> language for numerical work.  So, I do not know why the author above thinks
> Ada is "too specialized to adapt for scientific use".  Is there something in
> Ada which makes it hard to use for  scientific  programming?
> 
> The main problem I see with Ada for scientific use is that it does not have
> as nearly as many packages and functions ready to use output of the box for
> this, other than that, the language itself I think is better than Fortran
> and C for scientific work.
> 
> (the above quote is from a course on Computational Physics at University of
> Texas at Austin, may be I should write to the professor and ask him why he
> said that, but I am not sure I'll get an answer, my experience is that most
> professors do not answer email :)

     I don't know how universal that is, but it is true in my limited
experience.

                        Charlie


-- 
All the world's a stage, and most 
of us are desperately unrehearsed.  Sean O'Casey