From: rfengineer55 on
On Jun 28, 6:17 pm, Gib Bogle <g.bo...(a)auckland.no.spam.ac.nz> wrote:
> rfengineer55 wrote:
> > What can Fortran do that C, C++, C# can't?
>
> > Along similar lines where would Fortran be a superior chice over C, C+
> > +, or C#
>
> > Jeff
>
> > RF ENGINEER55
>
> I suggest a google search on that topic - there have been countless
> discussions/arguments over the years.  I'd be surprised if you find many here
> who want to reprise them.

I'll take Lynn's word for it :-) Good enough for now. The last thing
I need now is another research project.

I figured that if there was anything that Fortran could do, the fine
folks here would know.

Jeff
RFENGINEER55
From: dpb on
Richard Maine wrote:
> dpb <none(a)non.net> wrote:
> ...
>> I expect the above sentiment is largely owing to not having legacy F77
>> code
>
> In Lynn's case, I'd claim that the code was legacy F66 code that had not
> yet been fully ported to f77. It obviously also has a mixture of some
> newer features, but if she

I _believe_ this Lynn is a he (altho I may be wrong). :)


> ... is just now getting rid of the Hollerith
> usage, I'd say that part reflects F66 legacy. Hollerith was not part of
> the F77 standard. There is an F77 Appendix describing Hollerith, but
> about the first thing the Appendix section of f77 says is "These
> Appendices are not part of American National Standard Programming
> Language Fortran..."


And, that is true of at least some of the code as well as predating F77
-- I thought I had covered that but not quite as strongly, granted.

I was thinking mostly that at the moment he's still stuck w/ a F77
compiler albeit w/ some extensions as the port to IVF isn't functional
even though it apparently compiles owing to the difference in the /SAVE
compiler option behavior.

Either way, I think it's fair to say that his and his company's
viewpoint on Fortran is colored strongly by the limitations placed on
them of an apparently quite large and old code base.

--
From: Lynn McGuire on
> In Lynn's case, I'd claim that the code was legacy F66 code that had not
> yet been fully ported to f77. It obviously also has a mixture of some
> newer features, but if she is just now getting rid of the Hollerith
> usage, I'd say that part reflects F66 legacy. Hollerith was not part of
> the F77 standard. There is an F77 Appendix describing Hollerith, but
> about the first thing the Appendix section of f77 says is "These
> Appendices are not part of American National Standard Programming
> Language Fortran..."

BTW, in a case of non-strongly typed variable names, Lynn is a He.

I wish that I could say that you were wrong about the F66 code but
you are mostly correct. In fact, we only started using "implicit
none" since 2005 at the urging of several on this group. It took
a year just to get that ball rolling because the oldest member of
my staff was firmly against it. But he was one of those awesome
programmers who could write great code in any language. He has
since retired in Dec 2008 at the age of 73. I miss him greatly as
we worked together for over 20 years.

Lynn
From: dpb on
dpb wrote:
....

> I was thinking mostly that at the moment he's still stuck w/ a F77
> compiler ...

And, actually I wrote the earlier as the basis of _my_ preference for
Fortran vis a vis C/C++ being that I hadn't had any code base for quite
a long time that was constrained such as his. At one time had support
on all that stuff and worse but that went away when I left the power
reactor vendor arena behind many years ago...fortunately. :)

--
From: Gary L. Scott on
On 6/28/2010 6:32 PM, Richard Maine wrote:
> dpb<none(a)non.net> wrote:
> ...
>> I expect the above sentiment is largely owing to not having legacy F77
>> code
>
> In Lynn's case, I'd claim that the code was legacy F66 code that had not
> yet been fully ported to f77. It obviously also has a mixture of some
> newer features, but if she is just now getting rid of the Hollerith
> usage, I'd say that part reflects F66 legacy. Hollerith was not part of
> the F77 standard. There is an F77 Appendix describing Hollerith, but
> about the first thing the Appendix section of f77 says is "These
> Appendices are not part of American National Standard Programming
> Language Fortran..."
>
Even with software it is possible to generate non-repeating sequences.
I don't have any precise requirement personally. But I've used some
poor quality ones. In one case, I was trying to set random pixels (or
actually copy a graphic at random positions) in a bitmap image and the
RNG sequence was visually predictable. Maybe it was just a poor quality
RNG implementation (or maybe even I was misusing it).