From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 X-Spam-Checker-Version: SpamAssassin 3.4.4 (2020-01-24) on polar.synack.me X-Spam-Level: X-Spam-Status: No, score=-0.3 required=5.0 tests=BAYES_00, REPLYTO_WITHOUT_TO_CC,XPRIO autolearn=no autolearn_force=no version=3.4.4 X-Google-Thread: 103376,c4cb2c432feebd9d,start X-Google-Thread: 1094ba,c4cb2c432feebd9d,start X-Google-Attributes: gid103376,gid1094ba,public X-Google-Language: ENGLISH,ASCII-7-bit Path: g2news2.google.com!news4.google.com!border1.nntp.dca.giganews.com!nntp.giganews.com!newscon06.news.prodigy.com!prodigy.net!newsdst02.news.prodigy.com!prodigy.com!postmaster.news.prodigy.com!newssvr27.news.prodigy.net.POSTED!2febb241!not-for-mail Reply-To: "Nasser Abbasi" From: "Nasser Abbasi" Newsgroups: comp.lang.ada,comp.lang.fortran Subject: Ada vs Fortran for scientific applications X-Priority: 3 X-MSMail-Priority: Normal X-Newsreader: Microsoft Outlook Express 6.00.2900.2869 X-MimeOLE: Produced By Microsoft MimeOLE V6.00.2900.2869 X-RFC2646: Format=Flowed; Original Message-ID: NNTP-Posting-Host: 69.235.252.107 X-Complaints-To: abuse@prodigy.net X-Trace: newssvr27.news.prodigy.net 1148273682 ST000 69.235.252.107 (Mon, 22 May 2006 00:54:42 EDT) NNTP-Posting-Date: Mon, 22 May 2006 00:54:42 EDT Organization: SBC http://yahoo.sbc.com X-UserInfo1: FKPO@S^DTZRUST@[ORK@_VXB\JT@QDDMEPWXODMMHXMTWA]EPUUEAE[YETZPIWWI[FCIZA^NBFXZ_D[BFNTCNVPDTNTKHWXKB@X^B_OCJLPZ@ET_O[G\XSG@E\G[ZKVLBL^CJINM@I_KVIOR\T_M_AW_M[_BWU_HFA_]@A_A^SGFAUDE_DFTMQPFWVW[QPJN Date: Mon, 22 May 2006 04:54:42 GMT Xref: g2news2.google.com comp.lang.ada:4322 comp.lang.fortran:10051 Date: 2006-05-22T04:54:42+00:00 List-Id: I like to discuss the technical reasons why Ada is not used as much as Fortran for scientific and number crunching type applications? To make the discussion more focused, let's assume you want to start developing a large scientific application in the domain where Fortran is commonly used. Say you want to develop a new large Finite Elements Methods program or large computational physics simulation system. Assume you can choose either Ada or Fortran. What are the technical language specific reasons why Fortran would be selected over Ada? I happened to know a little about Ada and Fortran, and from what I know, I think Ada would be an excellent choice due to its strong typing, good support for numerical types and good Math library. I know also that Fortran is supposed to be better/faster when it comes to working with large Arrays (Matrices), but it is not clear to me why that is, and if it is still true with Ada 05. Something about arrays aliasing, but not sure how that is. I am also not sure on the support of sparse matrices in both languages' libraries. It is known that Ada strong domain is realtime and safety critical applications. I never understood why Ada never became popular in the scientific field in particular in areas such as computational physics or CFD or such similar fields. Any thoughts? thanks, Nasser