Date: Wed, 16 Dec 1998 16:47:27 -0500 (EST) From: Chuck Robey <chuckr@mat.net> To: Nate Williams <nate@mt.sri.com> Cc: sthaug@nethelp.no, bright@hotjobs.com, sgk@troutmask.apl.washington.edu, bs_13943_34262@adimus.de, hackers@FreeBSD.ORG Subject: Re: Fortran in the base system (was Re: sysinstall) Message-ID: <Pine.BSF.4.05.9812161640310.348-100000@picnic.mat.net> In-Reply-To: <199812162120.OAA25067@mt.sri.com>
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On Wed, 16 Dec 1998, Nate Williams wrote: > > > I don't know of *ANY* University that teaches Fortran to Comp. Sci > > > students. Fortran is a dead language, and is only used by engineers > > > that have already existing Fortran code. > > > > As far as I know, new code is definitely being written in Fortran 90. > > I hardly think it qualifies as a dead language yet. > > Read what I said. It is only used by engineers that have already > existing Fortran code. It doesn't mean new code isn't written, but the > new code that is written tends to be written by folks who already have > written lots of Fortran code. Actually, besides the mountain of legacy code, it vectorizes (where ANSI C doesn't) onto supercomputers, so academics are often into Fortran. These guys (from my own experience) want big workstations, and aren't really terribly interested in PC-based OSs. A smallish program to them is 200 megs in size. > Very few students know Fortran, unless they are required to learn it to > help our their teachers maintain existing code. :( Yeah. All the old fortran courses have been moved out. CS did it first, and the holdouts (the EE curriculums) have mostly been embarrassed into it. I don't know any user-class that is interested in PCs as a platform, and really bangs Fortran. That might change as the Alpha port gets going. As you go up in class, you pick up the costly apps. ----------------------------+----------------------------------------------- Chuck Robey | Interests include any kind of voice or data chuckr@glue.umd.edu | communications topic, C programming, and Unix. 213 Lakeside Drive Apt T-1 | Greenbelt, MD 20770 | I run Journey2 and picnic (FreeBSD-current) (301) 220-2114 | and jaunt (NetBSD). ----------------------------+----------------------------------------------- To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org with "unsubscribe freebsd-hackers" in the body of the message
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