Re: Fortran vs. C (was Re: Ken & Klaus.)

beliavsky_at_aol.com
Date: 09/22/04

  • Next message: beliavsky_at_aol.com: "Re: Fortran vs. C (was Re: Ken & Klaus.)" 
    Date: 21 Sep 2004 15:39:22 -0700

    nessuno@wigner.berkeley.edu (nessuno) wrote in message news:<f76c1166.0409201050.1d7bd2b@posting.google.com>...

    <SNIP>

    > Here is a question: Is there anything a general purpose programming
    > language (like C) needs that a scientific programming language doesn't
    > need? I don't think so, especially if you want to write large
    > programs. The converse is not true, of course, there are special
    > needs for scientific programs, like complex variables, and efficiency
    > is paramount. So in an ideal world, we'd have just one language for
    > both scientific programming and everything else.

    I wonder if an applications programming language (as opposed to a
    systems language like C) needs C-like pointers. Fortran 90 does have
    something called POINTER, but it is more high-level than that of C. Do
    any of Ada, (Visual) Basic, Java, Perl, Python etc. have C-like
    pointers? The heavy use of pointers in C and C++ is associated with
    many bugs and security problems and can make optimization more
    difficult.

  • Next message: beliavsky_at_aol.com: "Re: Fortran vs. C (was Re: Ken & Klaus.)"

    Relevant Pages

    • Re: Fortran vs. C (was Re: Ken & Klaus.)
      ... > language needs that a scientific programming language doesn't ... > both scientific programming and everything else. ... systems language like C) needs C-like pointers. ...
      (sci.physics)
    • Re: Choosing a scripting language for scientific programming
      ... Choosing a scripting language for scientific programming ... There is a guide to Ruby for programmers with hardly any prerequisites, ... does Ruby also support scientific programming? ...
      (comp.lang.ruby)
    • Re: Four Programming Questions
      ... Which language is best for scientific programming? ... Which language is best for games programming? ...
      (comp.programming)
    • Re: Is Forth suitable for heavy scientific computation?
      ... I really like the language ... Forth allows you to create a meta-language that is well-suited for your application, whether it happens to be a spaceflight simulator, or quantum mechanics calculations. ... Some examples of scientific programming in Forth may be found at ... Incidentally, I used the launching of the space shuttle as an example of Forth coding in my tutorial on Forth programming for scientists and engineers, which may be found at ...
      (comp.lang.forth)
    • Re: Operator overloading in C
      ... All development of C as an independent language has ... making any changes or improvements to the standard ... The lack of a counted string data structure, ... Pointers can't be used for arg1 or arg2. ...
      (comp.std.c)
    Loading