Article View: comp.lang.misc
Article #2491Re: Fortran vs. C for numerical work - expression notation
From: Dan Bernstein
Date: Mon, 10 Dec 1990 20:53
Date: Mon, 10 Dec 1990 20:53
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1476 bytes
In article <1990Dec10.071457.21537@ariel.unm.edu> john@ghostwheel.unm.edu (John Prentice) writes: > y > x [ ... ] > All I was saying was that infix > notation is what mathematicians use for exponentiation No. Superscript notation is not infix notation. It's not even close. Jim implied that Fortran is closer to ``standard mathematical notation'' than C is. I don't believe him. x**y and pow(x,y) are both quite far from superscript notation. And x.gt.y is certainly not standard. > I have NEVER heard a room full of Fortran > programmers complain about it however because it uses < instead of > .lt. (which is what you said). Well, I have. Wasn't there a study showing that command names could be ridiculously illogical and people would learn them just as quickly? I really do think familiar notations are more important than ``standard mathematical notation.'' ---Dan
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<1990Dec10.023332.15164@ariel.unm.edu> <4390:Dec1003:50:4790@kramden.acf.nyu.edu> <1990Dec10.071457.21537@ariel.unm.edu>Show Full Headers
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Path: arc1-ca.pugleaf.net!utzoo!attcan!uunet!wuarchive!zaphod.mps.ohio-state.edu!think.com!yale!cmcl2!kramden.acf.nyu.edu!brnstnd From: brnstnd@kramden.acf.nyu.edu (Dan Bernstein) Newsgroups: comp.lang.misc Subject: Re: Fortran vs. C for numerical work - expression notation Message-ID: <12407:Dec1020:53:5590@kramden.acf.nyu.edu> Date: 10 Dec 90 20:53:55 GMT References: <1990Dec10.023332.15164@ariel.unm.edu> <4390:Dec1003:50:4790@kramden.acf.nyu.edu> <1990Dec10.071457.21537@ariel.unm.edu> Organization: IR Lines: 24