Re: another way to shoot yourself in the foot?

[Gary Scott <garylscott@sbcglobal.net>]

Colin Paul Gloster wrote:
> Gary Scott <garylscott@sbcglobal.net> wrote in message 
> news:NPKbk.14568$N87.10457@nlpi068.nbdc.sbc.com ...
> |-------------------------------------------------------------------|
> |"Colin Paul Gloster wrote:                                         |
> |[..]                                                               |
> |> and we have FORTRAN and C++ codebases which I should improve. How|
> |> better to start than by porting to Ada!?                         |
> |                                                                   |
> |Or Fortran 95 or Fortran 2003 (ok, 2003 is nearly available)       |
> |<snip>                                                             |
> |> Regards,                                                         |
> |> Colin Paul Gloster                                               |
> |>                                                                  |
> |>                                                                  |
> |                                                                   |
> |                                                                   |
> |--                                                                 |
> |                                                                   |
> |Gary Scott"                                                        |
> |-------------------------------------------------------------------|
<snip>
> || 
> ||
> ||I can understand one choosing Fortran over Ada, simply due to the inertia 
> ||
> ||that Fortran has in this domain, and the huge amount of existing Fortran 
> ||
> ||code out there." 

Better reason is that it is vastly improved in recent standards and 
continues to rapidly evolve.

> ||
> ||-------------------------------------------------------------------------------||
> | 
> |
> |Unfortunately so, and a reason to be sceptical of supposedly 
> |
> |scientific results obtained numerically. Of course, if someone can not 
> |
> |program well in Fortran and tries to program in Ada, the results would 
> |
> |still be subject to suspicion. 
> |
> | 
> |
> ||-------------------------------------------------------------------------------||
> ||" But from a language point of view, I think Ada is definitely 
> ||
> ||better for numerical work than Fortran, but having a better language is 
> not    ||
> ||enough in the real world. 

The odd syntax of Pascal-like languages annoys too many scientific 
programmers.

> ||
> || 
> ||
> ||Nasser" 
> ||
> ||-------------------------------------------------------------------------------||
> | 
> |
<snip> |
> |---------------------------------------------------------------------------------|
> 

My company has extensive Ada experience and has found it quite error 
prone, inefficient, and difficult to debug and maintain, and has 
switched almost entirely to C++.

> Let us not forget that the standardization body took different
> directions in two of the latest attempts at an object-oriented Fortran
> (though something similar could be said for Ada).

Yes, they thoughtfully surveyed dozens of other languages and cherry 
picked the best features.  They picked some from Ada, some from 
Modula...none from C/C++, but of course they added necessary 
interoperability.

> 
> Regards,
> Colin Paul 
> 
> 


-- 

Gary Scott
mailto:garylscott@sbcglobal dot net

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