[XML-DEV Mailing List Archive Home] [By Thread] [By Date] [Recent Entries] [Reply To This Message] Re: More predictions to mull over
Not sure whether it's still true, but 10+ years ago a lot of scientists were still using FORTRAN in part because the optimizations people were putting into the compilers were more suited to numeric codes, while the optimizations for languages like C variants were focussed more on systems code (pointer chasing, etc.) I think the math libraries were also better, complex number types were more of a first class citizen, etc. In short, while the language was in many ways dated, it was being well maintained for a specific audience that other languages weren't addressing as well. In part for that reason, innovation continued on the FORTRAN platform certainly into the early '90s, and I suspect well beyond. It's probably more like 15+ years ago, but folks like Ken Kennedy of Rice U. (who I'm very sad to say died just a week or two ago) were doing most of their parallel computing experimentation on a FORTAN base. I suspect things have changed some since then. More and more large compiler efforts share back ends and optimizers accross multiple source languages, suggesting that the optimizations for C languages and FORTRAN have probably gotten closer, etc. No doubt a lot of parallel computing work, including for numeric codes, has moved to newer languages. Still, there were reasons other than "lack of vision" why scientists have persisted on using FORTAN long after most CS types figure it's become petrified. Maybe it has now, but if so that's relatively recent. -------------------------------------- Noah Mendelsohn IBM Corporation One Rogers Street Cambridge, MA 02142 1-617-693-4036 --------------------------------------
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