kruger@16bits.dec.com (Bear with me) (03/29/88)
1. A new FORTRAN compiler on a new machine is, if anything, buggier and harder to maintain than a new C compiler. The syntax is ugly, and that affects more than the theoretical sensibilities of computer science. 2. If you write in a language that allows the specification of data attributes in such a way that the compiler has more information and can do more parallelizing, that is syntactically clean, and designed for clarity, you will in the long run save a lot of scientist-time. 3. The Tangible benefits are in faster porting to new machines, lower product cost, wider availability AND increased reliability after an initial "settle down." A source to source translator could at least make programs run, although it obviously could not extract more information than was present in the original program. The problem with this idea is that the initial cost is high. But then, that is true with most technology, and this is not deterring younger scientists from building new tools in other languages. I personally feel this is a generation problem, much as cards continue to be used (albeit thankfully rare now). I am certainly not proposing a modified C, or even C++ as the replacement of choice. Though these languages have tremendous advantages for science in their compactness, they are somewhat ambiguous, and too oriented for less efficient, dynamic control. dov
eugene@pioneer.arpa (Eugene N. Miya) (03/29/88)
I had some discussion with Marty about his interesting posting of
this morning. He noted he forgot to put comp.lang.fortran as
the real target of his posting. This discussion doesn't directly
belong in comp.arch. The follow-up line has comp.lang.fortran in it
(as other discussions from wizards are overflowing). [You people
are getting lazy again.]
We can get this moving over to comp.lang.fortran: I propose (using
a Mike O'Dell solution) that all Fortran compilers be written to
intentionally generate bad code, then all other language compilers
can generate better code than it (C, Pascal, even LISP ;-), then Fortran's
poor performance can be used as a basis to get users to try other languages.
How's that for a modest proposal? ;-) The follow-up software had
better work, or Erik Fair is going to get a wet noodle.
From the Rock of Ages Home for Retired Hackers:
--eugene miya, NASA Ames Research Center, eugene@ames-aurora.ARPA
"You trust the `reply' command with all those different mailers out there?"
"Send mail, avoid follow-ups. If enough, I'll summarize."
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