Roger Glover wrote:
>
> > All this debate how we can make Fortran into a stilted
> > 'me too' imitation of C/C++ is so laughable if it were
> > were not so pathetic. What are they going to do with
> > such a monstrous, bloated Fortran - write Interactive
> > games, operating systems, telephony software ???????
>
> Or maybe write high energy physics simulations orders of
> magnitude more complicated than before, like the group at
> University of Texas has been doing with their C++ code...
>
> Or maybe write 3D stack depth migration modeling of seismic
> data like at least two oil companies I know of are doing
> with their C++ code...
>
> Or maybe write code to model antenna signatures under
> battlefield conditions like a former student of mine is
> doing with his C++ code...
>
> Or maybe write flexible derivatives forecasting models like
> the folks at Merrill-Lynch are doing with their C++ code...
>
> All of these are cases of expert Fortran programmers who
> now write floating-point, computationally-intensive code in
> C++. And why? Because Fortran does not provide them with
> the tools they need to write the kinds of codes they are
> being called upon to write.
>
There's one point that I can talk about: I'm working in an
oil company and I claim that C(++ or --) is definitly *not useful*
to write seismic data processing code, at least to write the
scientific part of the code! Here some people use Fortran
(most of them 77), and some people use C. But when I look at the
code of the latter ones, I'm a little bit puzzled...
Why do they use C(++) ?:
- They've been taught that Fortran writers escaped from Jurassic Park,
but all of them write either unreadable C code, or Fortran like C
code.
what is the most prehistoric ?
- They need X11/motif capabilities: I agree with them that Fortran
lacks graphical interfaces.
- They want to build OO industrial applications (don't laugh please):
I'm afraid that software engineering is a profession, and that most of
scientists (including me) are simply not able to produce good OO code.
the point is not only the knowledge of the syntax...
I'm sure that the best way is to write scientific code with Fortran,
and then to let competent people to encapsulate it in big
applications, which without any doubt need an OO langage.
This is not because I can paint that I can build a house.
regards
--
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Pierre Hugonnet, PhD Student (Geophysics) |phone:
ELF Exploration Production, PAU (FRANCE) |fax : 33- 5 59 83 48 58
Geological and Geophysical Research Div. |mailto:[log in to unmask]
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