P
Peter Clinch
Guest
Arthur Clune wrote:
> Mark McNeill <[email protected]> wrote:
>
>>I had to learn the basics of FORTRAN; I now remember *nothing* about it!
> Very wise.
Ah, The "F-Language" as it is sometimes known.
A while ago now, when Object Oriented Programming was starting to get
popular someone asked a "never mind all the buzzwords, what does this
actually *mean* to jobbing sciento-hackers on the ground?" question via
the letters page of something like Physics World, and I had a reply
published. Subsequently I got an invite to talk to some jobbing
sciento-hackers on the ground at an IPEM meeting, which I duly got
together. The main title was "Is FORTRAN really that bad?", and in case
I got the graveyard slot or we were running horribly late against lunch
etc. I prepared a second slide to follow on from the title, which just
said "Yes! The End"[1]...
Pete.
[1]Yes, I /know/ F90 with a good compiler and suitable hardware is the
cat's pyjamas if you want to crunch seriously huge arrays, but writing
quick hacks where you don't know how big things are in advance and the
compiler is MS F77 on a Windows 3 PC, as was the typical case at the
time in an NHS Physics department, is just Not Big And Not Clever...
--
Peter Clinch Medical Physics IT Officer
Tel 44 1382 660111 ext. 33637 Univ. of Dundee, Ninewells Hospital
Fax 44 1382 640177 Dundee DD1 9SY Scotland UK
net [email protected] http://www.dundee.ac.uk/~pjclinch/
> Mark McNeill <[email protected]> wrote:
>
>>I had to learn the basics of FORTRAN; I now remember *nothing* about it!
> Very wise.
Ah, The "F-Language" as it is sometimes known.
A while ago now, when Object Oriented Programming was starting to get
popular someone asked a "never mind all the buzzwords, what does this
actually *mean* to jobbing sciento-hackers on the ground?" question via
the letters page of something like Physics World, and I had a reply
published. Subsequently I got an invite to talk to some jobbing
sciento-hackers on the ground at an IPEM meeting, which I duly got
together. The main title was "Is FORTRAN really that bad?", and in case
I got the graveyard slot or we were running horribly late against lunch
etc. I prepared a second slide to follow on from the title, which just
said "Yes! The End"[1]...
Pete.
[1]Yes, I /know/ F90 with a good compiler and suitable hardware is the
cat's pyjamas if you want to crunch seriously huge arrays, but writing
quick hacks where you don't know how big things are in advance and the
compiler is MS F77 on a Windows 3 PC, as was the typical case at the
time in an NHS Physics department, is just Not Big And Not Clever...
--
Peter Clinch Medical Physics IT Officer
Tel 44 1382 660111 ext. 33637 Univ. of Dundee, Ninewells Hospital
Fax 44 1382 640177 Dundee DD1 9SY Scotland UK
net [email protected] http://www.dundee.ac.uk/~pjclinch/