[geeks] DaveM: Crays up?

[Lionel Peterson]

--- Joshua D Boyd <jdboyd at cs.millersville.edu> wrote:
> On Sun, Nov 24, 2002 at 12:38:25AM -0500, Dave McGuire wrote:
> >   So...umm...why not just use FORTRAN?
> 
> Don't know fortran.  Find little reason to use fortran for modern
> development except for the possibility that on some platforms the
> fortran compiler is better optimized that the C compiler.

Now, perhaps I have been reading too many "historical" computer science
books lately, but that just seems like the wrong way to look at it
Joshua...

Fortran was designed to solve mathamatical problems (compute intensive)
and to get maximal use from the hardware. Other, "Higher Level"
languages are designed (in most cases I am familiar with) are to get
maximal use from the programmer (the natural consequence of HW cost vs.
programmer costs reversing)...

FORTRAN (and COBOL) are still very much in use "in the wild", as is
BASIC (Visual...), that they were first implemented before you were
born does not make them any less useful today...

Kidz! ;^)


=====
Lionel

"Nothing would please me more than being able to hire ten
programmers and deluge the hobby market with good software"
Bill Gates, in "An OpenLetter to Hobbyists" dated February 3, 1976
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