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From: Ken Thomas <kst@ecs.soton.ac.uk>
Subject: Re: should I be interested in ada?
Date: 1999/02/16
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Date: 1999-02-16T00:00:00+00:00
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Phillip Helbig wrote:
> 
> I'm actually quite happy programming in Fortran95 but Ada seems to be
> the one language I regularly hear good things about (which also seem
> believable AND relevant to me).
> 
> Is there any reason to use Ada as opposed to Fortran95 for my stuff
> (mainly number crunching, numerical analysis etc, some home-grown
> graphics software, relatively simple text processing etc; almost all
> code I use is my own)?
> 
> What are the main advantages/disadvantages of Fortran and Ada?
> 
> How many platforms have ada compilers (in principle AND in practice)?
> 
> I just subscribed to comp.lang.ada, but have been a regular
> comp.lang.fortran reader (and contributor) for years.  I notice some
> folks appear to be regulars in both newsgroups, so perhaps they could
> answer these questions or, if they're FAQs, point me to the FAQ.
> 

The advantage of multilanguage programming cannot be dismissed. The
ability to get at BLAS is essential if speed is required. I have done a
few tests on the SP2 using GNAT3.11 (options -gnatp -O3)

	Level 1	(daxpy)	Ada 17Mflops	ESSL	60
	Level 2  (gemv)	Ada 12Mflops	ESSL	140

I have not done level 3 at the moment.

There is a binding to LAPACK on the gnat distribution site.

Ken


-- 
Dr K.S. Thomas
Department of Electronics and Computer Science
University of Southampton
Highfield
Southampton SO17 1BJ
United Kingdom

Telephone : (+44) 01703 592170
Fax :       (+44) 01703 593903

email: kst@ecs.soton.ac.uk