Re: Fortran vs C++ vs. etc (has little to do with realtime anymore)

[jcorn@unlgrad1.unl.edu (James F Cornwall)]

Joseph M. O'Leary (NOSPAMjmoleary@earthlink.net) wrote:


: Jeffrey Templon <templon@studbolt.physast.uga.edu> wrote in article
: <m34t7q3bcc.fsf_-_@studbolt.physast.uga.edu>...
: > One of the main reasons I tend to push Fortran (or something similar,
: > like Ada or Python ... although maybe not everyone would see what
: > I mean by "similar" here ;-) is that with stuff like C++, you *do*
: > have to know what you are doing, or you will make a mess of it.
: > The fact remains (and will for some time) that many scientific
: programmers
: > are scientists FIRST and programmers SECOND.  Turning the average
: > physicist/programmer (at least in my field) loose with a C++ compiler
: > is like giving your car keys to your eight-year-old.  A few of
: > them would actually be able to drive, but most of them would cause
: > big damage trying.
: > 
: > So one of my reasons for Fortran still being around: you can write
: > a reasonable program which runs reasonably efficiently just by more
: > or less typing in an expression of a simple algorithm.  Fortran's "mental
: > model" of the computer is very simple.

: I agree with you. I spent the first 4 years of my professional career
: working a large scale VAX/VMS Over-the-Horizon Radar project that was
: written almost totally in FORTRAN.  When I say large scale, I'm talking
: about something that required 2 VAX 6000/430 mainframes and, employed about
: 70 or 80 concurrent processes

Oh, God - I spent more time than I care to remember working on the 
OTH-B project, too.  My aspect was sending the ionospheric "weather" 
forecasts to your system (using an ancient Univac terminal protocol  
<U200> bastardized to talk to a VAX...).  Our code was a hodgepodge 
of Fortrans (IV, V, & 77) and assmbler code, much of it created by 
scientist/programmers as described above.

Given a choice between any flavor Fortran and any flavor of C, FORTRAN
wins hands down for me and my style of thinking.  The language does 
what it needs to do and still keeps things simple enough to be usable 
for those of us below the stratosphere.....

Just my $0.02 worth, YMMV.   :-)

Jim Cornwall
(ex-USAF, now working on groundwater modeling...Using Fortran!)

: Then I spent about a year and a half working on a Visual C++/Windows NT
: project that replaced a large portion of the older project -- mainly the UI
: code.   The difference between the 2 software development styles was like
: night and day.  In the old system, you had to know beforehand exactly how
: much memory your app (or process) required.  It was all allocated when the
: process started.  If you data outgrew that size, the process crashed. 

: Also, since it was in FORTRAN, the code read like...well like BASIC.  It
: was very easy to pick up and very straightforward.  All code paths were
: very structured, hierarchical, and BIG.  (Huge).  I think we documented
: very well what we did and wrote some very clean code.  We didn't try to
: force old, procedural programming techniquest on to an object-oriented
: langauge.  We accomplished the same task with probably less than one-third
: as many lines of code as the FORTRAN.

: Still, I don't envy the long-time FORTRAN programmer who has to switch from
: maintaining the old code base to maintaining the new one, even if it is
: much less code to look at.  It requires quite a philosophical shift.  

: Joe O'