Re: Another SBIR, and Ada is still missing in action

[woodruff@neux2.addvax.llnl.gov (John Woodruff)]

Matt and Robert are on about performing scientific computations in Ada,
possibly by using GNAT's fine pragma Import Fortran and COnvention
FOrtran (to switch the order of subsripts).

This solution is fine for a large number of computations, but Matt
specifically mentions ODE integrators; here the situation gets a little
sticky in my experience.

The ODE integrators that I experienced a few years ago required that
the integrand be a function defined on a range between T and (T+h) that
could be called non-determininistically by the integrator. This poses a
problem unless the linker can be pursuaded to invoke an Ada subprogram
from within a Fortran subprogram.  

I think that if GNAT's object-code management allows this kind of
interlanguage operation, then Robert's suggestion is sound.
--
John Woodruff
Lawrence Livermore National Lab
510 422 4661