echeverr@sal-sun8.usc.edu (The Black Sheep) (03/28/91)
Excuse me, but is it just me, or is fortran a language so old it is becoming obsolescent? Really, i just can't handle doing programs while tripping over small details and phantom errors from nowhere and tricky compilations and core dump after core dump after execution... Please, answer me, enlighten me on my feelings toward f77... ... cuz i still think it s*cks!! :-p ******************************************************************************* "Mother, do you think they'll like this song?" _____ _ / Ron A. Echeverri | | \ / BSAE 1994 Univ. of So. California |he |-<lack \heep email: echeverr@sal8.usc.edu | |_/ / /
khb@chiba.Eng.Sun.COM (Keith Bierman fpgroup) (03/28/91)
In article <16149@chaph.usc.edu> echeverr@sal-sun8.usc.edu (The Black Sheep) writes:
Excuse me, but is it just me, or is fortran a language so old it is becoming
obsolescent? Really, i just can't handle doing programs while tripping over
small details and phantom errors from nowhere and tricky compilations and
core dump after core dump after execution...
Have you used modern tools (static analysis tools for FORTRAN are at
least 15 years old ... older I'm sure).
Tried debugging C++ codes without good support tools ? I don't think
the language is at fault. But feel free to stop coding in it. It is a
free country.
--
----------------------------------------------------------------
Keith H. Bierman kbierman@Eng.Sun.COM | khb@chiba.Eng.Sun.COM
SMI 2550 Garcia 12-33 | (415 336 2648)
Mountain View, CA 94043mac@cis.ksu.edu (Myron A. Calhoun) (03/28/91)
In <16149@chaph.usc.edu> echeverr@sal-sun8.usc.edu (The Black Sheep) writes: >Excuse me, but is it just me, or is fortran a language so old it is becoming >obsolescent? Really, i just can't handle doing programs while tripping over >small details and phantom errors from nowhere and tricky compilations and >core dump after core dump after execution... > Please, answer me, enlighten me on my feelings toward f77... OH! I thought you were talking about our Modula-2 compiler! --Myron. -- # Myron A. Calhoun, Ph.D. E.E.; Associate Professor (913) 539-4448 home # INTERNET: mac@cis.ksu.edu (129.130.10.2) 532-6350 work # UUCP: ...rutgers!ksuvax1!harry!mac 532-7353 fax # AT&T Mail: attmail!ksuvax1!mac W0PBV @ K0VAY.KS.USA.NA
jlg@lanl.gov (Jim Giles) (03/29/91)
From article <16149@chaph.usc.edu>, by echeverr@sal-sun8.usc.edu (The Black Sheep): > Excuse me, but is it just me, or is fortran a language so old it is becoming > obsolescent? Really, i just can't handle doing programs while tripping over > small details and phantom errors from nowhere and tricky compilations and > core dump after core dump after execution... Everything you say here can be applied to most languages of widespread popular use. And new languages aren't much better - the funny little bugs and details you talk about are not yet shook out of new designs. However, Fortran is one of the most stable and well understood languages around. There are fewer such minutiae to trip over in Fortran than any other language still in widespread use. Certainly you don't think C or Pascal are better with respect to traps and pitfalls? Or maybe you're just using UNIX all the time and have never seen a good implementation of anything but C? (Frankly, I've never even seen a good C implementation on plain vanilla UNIX - the good ones are all expensive commercial products.) J. Giles P.S. Unfortunately, everything I just said about Fortran being stable is about to be eradicated by the ANSI committee. Oh well.
ereiamjh@jhunix.HCF.JHU.EDU (Tom B. O'Toole) (03/29/91)
If you think it sucks, why are you posting to this newsgroup? The rest of us who are interested in the subject don't give a shit that you think it sucks. Comments like yours, the only purpose of which is to annoy, don't add anything to the subject dealt with here. -- Tom O'Toole - ecf_stbo@jhuvms.bitnet - JHUVMS system programmer Homewood Computing Facilities, Johns Hopkins University, Balto. Md. 21218 ease!Trim!eeeaaaassse!trimtrimtrimeeeeeeaaaaassetrimease!trim!ease!trimeaase
chidsey@smoke.brl.mil (Irving Chidsey) (03/29/91)
In article <19435@lanl.gov> jlg@lanl.gov (Jim Giles) writes:
<
<J. Giles
<
<P.S. Unfortunately, everything I just said about Fortran being stable
<is about to be eradicated by the ANSI committee. Oh well.
Not realy, the real movers and shakers will by those instructed to
implement the ANSI committees ideas first so that they can have the first
real Fortran90 on the street. And we'll all be beta testers!
Irv
--
I do not have signature authority. I am not authorized to sign anything.
I am not authorized to commit the BRL, the DA, the DOD, or the US Government
to anything, not even by implication. They do not tell me what their policy
is. They may not have one. Irving L. Chidsey <chidsey@brl.mil>kauff@cgdisis.cgd.ucar.edu (Brian Kauffman) (03/29/91)
In article <16149@chaph.usc.edu> echeverr@sal-sun8.usc.edu (The Black Sheep) writes: >Excuse me, but is it just me, or is fortran a language so old it is becoming >obsolescent? Really, i just can't handle doing programs while tripping over >small details and phantom errors from nowhere and tricky compilations and >core dump after core dump after execution... > > Please, answer me, enlighten me on my feelings toward f77... > > ... cuz i still think it s*cks!! :-p > I hope this is enlightening: I use Fortran every day and the problems you mention are not problems for me. I've also used C extensively, but for my needs, it wouldn't be worth the effort to convert my models from Fortran to C. It seems to be a recurring theme that someone proclaims that Fortran sucks and we should all switch to C (or whatever). The bottom line is, for lots of folks, switching is not worth the effort, and quite possibly not even an improvement. -Brian
cochran@spam.rtp.dg.com (Dave Cochran) (03/29/91)
In article <16149@chaph.usc.edu>, echeverr@sal-sun8.usc.edu (The Black Sheep) writes: |> Excuse me, but is it just me, or is fortran a language so old it is becoming |> obsolescent? Really, i just can't handle doing programs while tripping over |> small details and phantom errors from nowhere and tricky compilations and |> core dump after core dump after execution... |> |> Please, answer me, enlighten me on my feelings toward f77... |> |> ... cuz i still think it s*cks!! :-p |> Wishful thinking, huh? :-) Well, find a language that doesn't have "small details" for the uninitiated to trip over, and at the same time produces code that'll add 1 and 1 together in less than a week, and the entire computer industry will be revolutionized. Really, it all depends on what you want to do when you grow up. If you want to go to work for a computer manufacturer, then forget the FORTRAN and concentrate on C. If you want to go to work in any other scientific field on earth, then you better tough it out. It's old, but because of that there are millions of lines of code extant and tens of thousands of compilers installed at user sites, so you'll probably end up using one. I took calculus, which is a lot older than FORTRAN, and I thought THAT sucked, but that doesn't mean that it's obsolete. -- +------------------------------------------------------+ |Dave Cochran (cochran@spam.rtp.dg.com) | |Data General Corporation, Research Triangle Park, NC | +------------------------------------------------------+ |"Outside of a dog, a book is man's best friend. | | Inside of a dog it's too dark to read." -Groucho Marx| +------------------------------------------------------+
vsnyder@jato.jpl.nasa.gov (Van Snyder) (03/29/91)
In article <16149@chaph.usc.edu> echeverr@sal-sun8.usc.edu (The Black Sheep) writes: >Excuse me, but is it just me, or is fortran a language so old it is becoming >obsolescent? Really, i just can't handle doing programs while tripping over >small details and phantom errors from nowhere and tricky compilations and >core dump after core dump after execution... > > Please, answer me, enlighten me on my feelings toward f77... > > ... cuz i still think it s*cks!! :-p > >******************************************************************************* > >"Mother, do you think they'll like this song?" > _____ _ / >Ron A. Echeverri | | \ / >BSAE 1994 Univ. of So. California |he |-<lack \heep >email: echeverr@sal8.usc.edu | |_/ / > / Sounds like he doesn't like C much either. The problems with Fortran are well known. So why doesn't it disappear? Because Pascal, Algol, C, ... don't know how to compute, for one reason or another. E.g., no open arrays in pascal, all intermediates coerced to double in (pre-ANSI) C, no 2 argument arctangent in Modula-2, no standardized I/O anywhere except Fortran, serious portability problems for the arcane languages, no decent compilers for (insert your favorite) ... -- vsnyder@jato.Jpl.Nasa.Gov ames!elroy!jato!vsnyder vsnyder@jato.uucp
jlg@cochiti.lanl.gov (Jim Giles) (03/30/91)
In article <28.Mar.91.231913.36@cogsci.cog.jhu.edu>, writes: |> [...] Anyone who |> tells biologists that they should learn to program in FORTRAN really doesn't |> like biologists. And, anyone who tells them to learn C must actively _hate_ them. J. Giles
corrigan@weber.ucsd.edu (Michael J. Corrigan) (03/30/91)
In article <16149@chaph.usc.edu> echeverr@sal-sun8.usc.edu (The Black Sheep) writes: >Excuse me, but is it just me, or is fortran a language so old it is becoming >obsolescent? Really, i just can't handle doing programs while tripping over >small details and phantom errors from nowhere and tricky compilations and >core dump after core dump after execution... > > Please, answer me, enlighten me on my feelings toward f77... > > ... cuz i still think it s*cks!! :-p fortran is not becoming obsolescent. It is a LOT better than it used to be ( do while e.g.) It may be you. Humans are not as willing/able to perform rote memorization, learning of complex tasks nor to concentrate for long periods as they get older in my experience. Time to let the youngsters in. If you had learned fortran on a non-unix system and are a dedicated unix weenie then you would be thankful that there is a fortran compiler. f77, although beefed up in recent years on some systems ( they tend to give it a new name at that point, though) is still implemented poorly on any number of UNIX systems. Possibly you have one of those. For example, on some systems there is no symbolic debugger support for f77. The syntax checker possibly isn't informative. Intermodule cross-referencing at source level would be nice. That's not fortran's fault but the vendor. On tripping over small details. I don't know any computer language /compiler where characters can be left out of a program and you will still get the same result. The program has to be letter-perfect in any language. Every t crossed an i dotted, so to speak. As for phantom errors, presumably those would be run-time errors. Usually this is due to trashed memory. Check your array bounds. Check passed data types for consistency between caller and callee. Tricky compilations ??? Try "man make" If you do "mkdir core" then you won't get any more core dumps. Michael J. Corrigan corrigan@ucsd.edu