Re: Another ammunition

[Michael Erdmann <michael.erdmann@snafu.de>]

Jean-Pierre Rosen wrote:

> I know I'm preaching to the choir, but here is another story Ada fans can
> tell to the other guys who say that "language doesn't matter"...
> 
For me this is a good example, that language does not matter since 
you can achieve everything in any language by spending unlimited
ammount of effort in the implementation phase.

> My son was recently doing an assignment in C, which involved lots of
> floating point computations, and he kept getting inconsistent results.
> After lots of searching, he discovered that NaNs were generated in various
> places. There seemed to be no consistency in the appearing of NaNs:
> changing optimization options, adding intermediate variables in
> computations, etc. all changed the way NaNs were produced.
> 
This is the reason why i am using still Fortran for heavy 
caculcation.

I think that this is not a pure technical problem, because 
i know a lot researchers which are using C for there calculations.
The problem seems to me the teacher, which should know, that a 
lanaguage is simply a tool to achieve the implementation 
of your requierements. The usage of these tools has to be 
questioned during design since every tool is has a limited 
application domain.
My personal experience was that teachers are forced by 
curiculum to teach on basis of a single language, which i think
is simply wrong. The teacher should be asked why he has asked
to do the job in C.


A happy new year

Michael.