On Tue, Mar 13, 2007 at 12:59:49PM -0700, Jim Lux wrote: > Which syntax compiler writers hate, because you can't use a parser > that always moves forward. (But compiler writers love FORTH)
Er, compiler writers (like the ones around here) know that parsing is the easiest part of compiling, so they don't stress about it. Really, all this discussion about language misses the boat. You should use whatever language is used in your environment. If you want to do weather forecasting, that's Fortran95. As a student, it's trivial to learn Fortran if you've picked up any other procedural language, and if you're a scientist, it can't hurt to know Fortran. If you're going to write some example programs, just be sure you're doing something like a numerical program which is within Fortran's area of excellence. I value students who know multiple languages over a student who's only been exposed to one: there's no proof that the latter student is mentally flexible. The bit about not having libraries for Fortran isn't really true. It's not hard to write glue routines to libraries in C, and in fact many new important "Fortran" libraries are actually written in C (atlas, fftw, MPI, hdf/netcdf, yadda yadda.) And I don't do 3D graphics in Fortran: I have my Fortran code write out data, and I write a reader for the graphics gizmo in whatever the preferred form is. Some gizmos read HDF, some need some coversion. The National Labs have a lot of codes which include big dollops of F77, F95, C, and C++... in the same million-line code. They pay good money, too. -- greg _______________________________________________ Beowulf mailing list, Beowulf@beowulf.org To change your subscription (digest mode or unsubscribe) visit http://www.beowulf.org/mailman/listinfo/beowulf
