Why these original FORTRAN quirks?
in [Fortran]
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From: Rostyslaw J. Lewyckyj on 29 Oct 2006 17:37 Brooks Moses wrote: > Gary Scott wrote: > >> It all comes down to market size. Make the programming masses want to >> use Fortran, the market size will increase and the prices will come >> down. This means "improving" the language sufficiently that >> evangelists can begin to turn the tide of "common knowledge" about the >> deficiencies of Fortran back. > > > And there's also the pretty key point that most of people's complaints > here about "stunted Fortran" seem to be about things that are handled by > OS-interface libraries, not by the langauge itself. The C-compatibility > bits of F2003 are fairly significant for fixing that, I think. > > Beyond that, I think there's a sort of fundamental issue that Fortran's > big strengths are in number-crunching of various forms -- those are the > places where it's "much better than" rather than just "as good as" -- > and that's not really exciting to most of the "programming masses", > because it's not what they do. > > I think Fortran's other big -- and largely unsung -- strength is its > development model. As modern languages go, it's a little behind the > state of the art, and will probably continue to be so (and I think this > is probably a good thing). But it's also backward compatible for three > decades. Thus, if I'm starting a new project today, and I expect that > in three decades I'll want to be using large parts of it in stuff that's > programmed with a relatively modern language three decades hence, I > think there's really only one clear choice. C++ will be quite old by > then, C will remain a painfully low-level language, and who knows where > today's popular things will be. Fortran will still be a decade behind > being up-to-date, and will be backward compatible. > > - Brooks > > Not if some of the modernizers get their way :) Another thing is that the older Fortrans were fairly small and simple so that not-a-programming-professionals could get their heads around it and write pretty good programs. The recent elaborations have indeed enriched the language. But... -- Rostyk
From: Rostyslaw J. Lewyckyj on 29 Oct 2006 17:46 Richard Maine wrote: > Rostyslaw J. Lewyckyj <urjlew(a)bellsouth.net> wrote: > > >>Anyway, Fortran is now a part of the GCC suite of compilers, >>referenced as g77; but it supports the F66, F77 and F90 standards. > Wrong attribution. Those are someone elses words. But, on behalf of the group, thanks for the correction anyway. > > No, g77 does not suport f90. It supports a few isolated f90 features, > but few of the major ones. It makes no pretext of being an f90 compiler. > > You are probably confusing g77 and gfortran. GFortran is part of the GCC > suite. It does support f90/f95, as well as f77.... and sort of f66, > though I'm not sure that many compilers today actually support all of > f66. But GFortran is not the same thing as g77. You are probably > confusing them because g77 used to be part of the GCC suite, whereas > GFortan now is. This does not mean that they are the same compiler - > they are completely different. (And then there is g95, which is also a > free f95 and earlier compiler, but not part of GCC). >
From: AeroSpace Ed on 29 Oct 2006 18:14 This post is confusing, and later on you chide Richard for a wrong attribution. It looks like that's because this post is a mutation of something. I quite figure out who's other post that you've quoted. On top of that I'm no longer sure what or who is complaining that Fortran development tools are too expensive. I use Linux. My compiler, linker, build system, graphic libraries, widget sets are all "free". So I just don't understand who's complaining about what. Ed Rostyslaw J. Lewyckyj wrote: > Rostyslaw J. Lewyckyj wrote: > >> AeroSpace Ed wrote: >> >>> >>> How can you say this with so many "free" Fortran compilers available?? >>> >>> Not only is there "g77", "gfortran" and "g95", but Intel's and Sun's >>> compilers are now free (with a few restrictions..) >>> >>> I vehemently disagree with your post. Now, more than ever is Fortran >>> accessable to just about anyone, with a low (sometimes, zero) >>> investment. >>> >>> Ed >>> >> Please tell me more, in some detail. >> I have a Pentium 3 computer running Windows 98 and am setting up a >> replacement 1.6GHz Pentium 4 with Windows XP. >> What low cost pieces of software do I need in order to write and >> run Fortran programs that will draw graphs on my screen & printer >> on these two systems. >> >> My email address is good. >> Advance thanks > > Thank yous to: > - Roger Ivie <rivie(a)ridgenet.net>: > Ah. Well, if it's windows you're using, you should look into > Watcom. See http://www.openwatcom.org/ . > > - mrr(a)pilt.reistad.priv.no (Morten Reistad): > I don't know what graphics you need; these Windows API's > tend to be very C-based. > > Anyway, Fortran is now a part of the GCC suite of compilers, > referenced as g77; but it supports the F66, F77 and F90 standards. > > I would assume cygwin can support fortran based programs now; > and cygwin can be downloaded and run on most windows-based > machines under gnu terms. > > AND > - Brian.Inglis(a)SystematicSW.ab.ca : > > gnuplot / plotlib, scilab / plotlib, dislin, various others. > Mingw supports g77 and g95, probably 4.x series. > Cygwin supports g77 3.4 and g95 ?.?. > DJGPP supports the 4.x series of compilers. > G95 ports may not be available as a standard package in the > distribution, in which case you download then issue the standard build > commands: cd src ; tar xvf ... ; ./configure ; make all install. > You first have to download and install the standard autotools, shell, > utilities, development tools to be able to do this. These packages are > normally well documented in the distribution. > > > But my request is with malice aforethought. :) > Note my system(s) Microsoft Windows. (on, of course, Intel 86 type > cpus.) , and I asked for all the pieces of software needed. > That turns out to be a bunch more that just a compiler.: > - Compiler running on Windos OS(es) > - Linker/binder/loader for OS(es) and particular object formats > - Librarian > - Execution libraries > - Graphics libraries (compatible with above) > and with graphics card being used. > - Printer driving software. > ............ > > Supposedly $$$ would solve the problems handily. > /BAH mentioned $50K. > > So come one, come all. I'm waiting for your suggestions > of software with approximate prices. > Disk space and central memory shouldn't be a problem > I have .75Gb or 1.25Gb central memory and ~30Gb of free > disk space on the two machines. > I'm willing to bet that the suggestions will be 1st > instal Linux, then ... > ..Oh the $$$ are coming out of my SS Dole. No deep > pockets govt. of commercial funding.
From: Greg Lindahl on 29 Oct 2006 21:17 In article <45452F5A.6050503(a)bellsouth.net>, Rostyslaw J. Lewyckyj <urjlew(a)bellsouth.net> wrote: >Wrong attribution. Those are someone elses words. >But, on behalf of the group, thanks for the correction anyway. It's worth pointing out that your unusual quoting was the cause. Please follow the usual Usenet method of quoting. -- greg
From: Rostyslaw J. Lewyckyj on 29 Oct 2006 22:46
Greg Lindahl wrote: > In article <45452F5A.6050503(a)bellsouth.net>, > Rostyslaw J. Lewyckyj <urjlew(a)bellsouth.net> wrote: > > >>Wrong attribution. Those are someone elses words. >>But, on behalf of the group, thanks for the correction anyway. > > > It's worth pointing out that your unusual quoting was the cause. > Please follow the usual Usenet method of quoting. > > -- greg > Mea Culpa. I was trying to combine the answers from three different posters, thank them all at one time and then add my new comments. I don't know that there is a 'usual method' for quoting in that situation. |