I would like to add my two cents to recent developments in this thread,
so here are couple somewhat loosely connected but relevant observations.
Try finding a subtle numerical error in hundreds of thousands of lines of
FORTRAN. Try being a young grad. student and looking for a subtle numerical
error (not your bug) in hundreds of thousands of lines of FORTRAN code. The
amount of time spent debugging could have been spent much better learning
science or better programming methodology. Plus, understanding C++ is much
easier than understanding hundreds of thousand of lines of FORTRAN code.
Now if the FORTRAN code is not very large, which presumably the majority
is not, then it is not so difficult to maintain. But still, we have an
obligation to write maintainable code. Especially since we can build
upon what people have already learned, people from this list, for example.
C++ programers can be library users and not have to go very deeply into
the language. Library developers don't have to know much about compiler
technology, but it sure helps in understanding the language as I'm finding.
Actually library developers need to have some models describing the software/
hardware interface to use for optimizing their code.
Another observation: in FORTRAN everything is built on arrays. Sparse matrix
algebra is implemented with arrays. Actually, arrays are convenient for
organizing your data into contiguous block of memory, which helps with
data flow, etc.... I can see why a valarray would be useful. We could
probably avoid arrays when we build other more sophisticated data structures,
but contiguous blocks of memory with pointers, array syntax, or any way we
choose to interface them are very important.
____
Gary Kedziora // Department of Chemistry // Northwestern University
email: kedziora@chem.nwu.edu//ph: (847)467-4857//fax: (847)491-7713
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