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

[rhawkins@iastate.edu (Rick Hawkins)]

In article <5ve7c6$f4m$1@info.uah.edu>,
Dr. Krishnan Chittur <chitturk@email.uah.edu> wrote:

>Joseph M. O'Leary (NOSPAMjmoleary@earthlink.net) wrote:
>
>: Jeffrey Templon <templon@studbolt.physast.uga.edu> wrote in article
>: > The fact remains (and will for some time) that many scientific
>: programmers
>: > are scientists FIRST and programmers SECOND.  
>........
>: > 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.

>Well said! ... I still have to find an environment that will allow
>me to develop a GUI as simply as I can write Fortran Code to 
>do calculations ... if there is one, please let me know.

yes!!!  learning c++ after not using c for ten years took some work.
Fortran after 12 years didn't; I could sit back donw and code.

I'm not going to knock c++; it's wonderful for where it belongs.  But
for my fairly simple models that just need numbers pounded into
submission, and which won't be reused, Fortran is *much* easier, if for
no other reason than high-level I/O.  I was spending 2/3 of my time in
c++ either writing pieces builit into fortran, or looking for libraries
with the pieces.  I think I switched when i couldn't find a max(), and
couldn't figure out the single example of writing a function with
variable number of arguments (actually, i used smalltalk for a while in
between, but that's another story).

Also, the bit on needing to define new classes for array bounds
checking, rather than a compiler switch, was maddening . . .

rick
-- 
R E HAWKINS
rhawkins@iastate.edu

These opinions will not be those of ISU until they pay my retainer.