Re: Fun with C

["Nasser M. Abbasi" <nma@12000.org>]

On 4/23/2011 8:23 AM, George P. wrote:

> Just out of curiosity, why physicists should learn C?  Isn't FORTRAN
> much better choice for them?
>

Yes and No.

First, there are really two types of physics courses: computational
physics, where the emphasis is on solving physics problems
computationally, and there are the classical physics courses,
where the emphasis is on solving physics problems analytically.
Some courses have a combination of both.

For STUDENTS, Fortran is not a good choice for many of the physics
courses, other than the ones with more of the computational aspect.

Look at any physics dept. these days, hardly anyone is using Fortran
any more for teaching.

Also, Fortran does not have plotting ability build-in, so if a
student solves a differential equation using Fortran and wants to
plot the solution, then how to do it? Then have to go learn
a new system, maybe gnuplot, learn how to save the data correctly
from the Fortran program, etc... Most student have hard time
just learning how to open a file, never mind all the rest.

Ada would have been a good choice for computational physics,
but it also have the same problem when it comes to visualization.

That is why, for teaching physics, better to use a packaged
system, which makes it easy for students to use, and they
can concentrate on the physics, not on the nitty gritty of
'coding'.  For courses with more analytical physics,
Mathematica/Maple/Sage type systems are better, since they
allow symbolic computation, and for the more computational
physics courses, other alternative are available, such as
Matlab/Ocatve etc..might be a good choice also.

The point is to learn physics with least waste of time in
the implementation part of the solution of the physics problem.

But any one of the above is better than C.

--Nasser