[Beowulf] Fortran is Awesome

[Paul Edmon]

Not necessarily.  I learned Fortran as part of my Numerical Methods for 
Physicists in grad school.  We had the option of using C or Fortran.  
Fortran has proved much more useful to learn than C and I've picked up C 
on the side.  In many cases programming is a matter of logical 
structured thinking, if you can get that the rest is learning syntax for 
different languages.

For people doing numerical methods, Fortran is way superior in terms of 
usability than C.  That said I would never teach Fortran in a Computer 
Science class, but in a Numerical Methods for Scientists I would go with 
Fortran.

-Paul Edmon-

On 11/29/18 10:09 AM, Nathan Moore wrote:
> I've probably mentioned this before.  If a student only has one 
> programming course, teaching fortran feels like malpractice, however, 
> this book is awesome!
>
> Classical Fortran, Kupferschmid
>
> https://www.crcpress.com/Classical-Fortran-Programming-for-Engineering-and-Scientific-Applications/Kupferschmid/p/book/9781138116436
>
> Nathan
>
> On Wed, Nov 28, 2018 at 12:15 PM Paul Edmon <pedmon at cfa.harvard.edu 
> <mailto:pedmon at cfa.harvard.edu>> wrote:
>
>     Very true. I would never use Fortran for an OS.  From what I
>     understand
>     compiler writers still prefer Fortran as its easier to vectorize. 
>     Thus
>     if you want best vector performance from your code Fortran is it,
>     mainly
>     due to the easy of writing a compiler that can do so.
>
>     In the end use the tool that's best for the job.  That's the moral of
>     the story.
>
>     -Paul Edmon-
>
>     On 11/28/2018 12:17 PM, Robert G. Brown wrote:
>     > On Wed, 28 Nov 2018, Paul Edmon wrote:
>     >
>     >> Once C has native arrays and orders them properly, then we can
>     talk :).
>     >
>     > Yeah, like this.  That's really the big difference, isn't it?
>     Although
>     > one can argue about just what "properly" really means... other
>     than "in
>     > the same order that Fortran orders them" ;-)
>     >
>     >    rgb
>     >
>     >>
>     >> -Paul Edmon-
>     >>
>     >> On 11/28/18 11:36 AM, Peter St. John wrote:
>     >>       Maybe I'm being too serious but in the old days, Fortran
>     was the
>     >>       most mature, maintained compiler and the libraries were
>     great,
>     >>       then later, C had better compilers but the libraries were
>     still
>     >>       great. Now, I think the only good thing about Fortran is that
>     >>       it's pretty easy to learn?
>     >> Peter
>     >>
>     >> On Wed, Nov 28, 2018 at 11:30 AM Stu Midgley <sdm900 at gmail.com
>     <mailto:sdm900 at gmail.com>> wrote:
>     >>       I agree 100% .?You can't beat bash and fortran.
>     >>
>     >> On Wed, Nov 28, 2018 at 9:02 AM Paul Edmon
>     >> <pedmon at cfa.harvard.edu <mailto:pedmon at cfa.harvard.edu>> wrote:
>     >>       Fortran is and remains an awesome language.? More
>     >>       people should use it:
>     >>
>     >> https://wordsandbuttons.online/fortran_is_still_a_thing.html
>     >>
>     >>       -Paul Edmon-
>     >>
>     >>       _______________________________________________
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>     >>
>     >> --
>     >> Dr Stuart Midgley
>     >> sdm900 at gmail.com <mailto:sdm900 at gmail.com>
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>     >>
>     >
>     > Robert G. Brown http://www.phy.duke.edu/~rgb/
>     > Duke University Dept. of Physics, Box 90305
>     > Durham, N.C. 27708-0305
>     > Phone: 1-919-660-2567  Fax: 919-660-2525 email:rgb at phy.duke.edu
>     <mailto:email%3Argb at phy.duke.edu>
>     >
>     >
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>
>
> -- 
> - - - - - - -   - - - - - - -   - - - - - - -
> Nathan Moore
> Mississippi River and 44th Parallel
> - - - - - - -   - - - - - - -   - - - - - - -
>
>
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