Re: FORTRAN vs C

["W. Todd Wipke" <wipke { *at * } SECS.UCSC.EDU>]

I think the background of the programmer is important to consider.  Most
 of the FORTRAN scientific programmers have lots of training in math and
 science, but little or none in modern programming methodology.  They learn
 from old FORTRAN programs that are not good examples of structured
 programming.  C programmers started with structured programming text books
 and much more recent reference code.
     I recall when PL-1 was going to totally displace FORTRAN, it didn't.
 In 1978 the PRIMOS operating system for Prime timesharing computers was
 written in FORTRAN, and it was built with structured programming.
     In summary, most scientists are trained primarily in their discipline,
 programming is considered by many to be "obvious" if you know the math
 of
 your discipline--the program follows obviously from the matrix equations.
 Scientists often learn programming by looking at old programs that are
 usually written in FORTRAN and usually linear spaghetti style without
 indention.  Newer applications such as AI, graphics, synthesis planning,
 etc show stronger influence from software engineering and minimal math.
     We should realize that programming is a form of creative scientific
 writing.  We emphasize to our students the importance of writing style and
 clear concise writing.  We should extend this to programming style, its
 important to the future of the field of computational chemistry.
 wipke { *at * } secs.ucsc.edu
 Todd Wipke
 Molecular Engineering Laboratory
 University of California
 Santa Cruz, CA 95064