ed@gargoyle.UUCP (Ed Friedman) (08/05/85)
References: Does anyone have any recommendations for which Fortran-77 compiler to get for the IBM-PC? I am considering the one by Digital Research. Does anyone who has tried it have any idea what it's strengths and weaknesses are?
rchrd@well.UUCP (rchrd = Richard Friedman) (08/11/85)
In article <104@gargoyle.UUCP>, ed@gargoyle.UUCP (Ed Friedman) writes: > Does anyone have any recommendations for which Fortran-77 compiler to > get for the IBM-PC? I am considering the one by Digital Research. Does > anyone who has tried it have any idea what it's strengths and weaknesses > are? We have Dr FORTRAN. Be sure you get the most recent version 4.1 or beyond. The 4.0 release had lots of problems that made it practically worthless. Our original idea was to use the compiler on PC's to check out code intended to run on large mainframe machines uploaded from our pc's. We gave up because we couldnt make the pc compiler work in a reasonable manner. One advertised feature (a good cross reference listing) has not been implemented. Running the compiler and loader requires agility if you dont have a hard disk. In fact, I would not advise trying to do anything with FORTRAN without a hard disk. Any significant programming project will have problems compiling and running off diskettes since the product requires certain (large) library files reside on the same diskette as the object code. I would also expect lots of bugs. I have heard of vast numbers with the 4.0 release and the 4.1 update did not answer all of them. To date I have not heard of a good fortran compiler for the PC. I think, in the final analysis, you have to go one level higher to a more sophisticated machine for engineering applications... like an HP or Tektronics etc. -- [rchrd] = Richard Friedman Pacific-Sierra Research, 2855 Telegraph #415 Berkeley, CA 94705 (415) 540 5216 UUCP: {?,?,hplabs)!well!rchrd