🚀 go-pugleaf

In article <PCG.90Dec12181318@odin.cs.aber.ac.uk> pcg@cs.aber.ac.uk (Piercarlo Grandi) writes:
>
>....Still, of my 2 alternative to Fortran, one, C++, is kind of
>the ultimate in notational convenience; like Fortran [89]0, user defined
>types, operators, ... Now that I think of it I think that one of the
>very best languages for numerical analysis, with some of the very best
>implementations, is Algol 68. Too bad it has almost faded away.
>

Whatever did happen to Algol?  You see alot of the old ACM algorithms
programmed in it and it looked rather interesting.  I can remember
seeing satellite ephemeris programs written in it 20 years ago, but you never
hear of it anymore.

So how is C++ for scientific programming?  In particular, what exactly
does an OOPS language do for numerical programming?  Also, do you 
(or anyone else) have any suggestions for a good language for doing 
numerical programming on a parallel computer?  I am interested in fluid dynamic 
like codes, so I need to maximize performance.   I am looking at domain
decomposition problems where I may have somewhat unstructured grids.
The recent C versus Fortran war has at least convinced me that I should look
more seriously at least at C for such things.  Is C++ or Ada better?

>
> ... (after a discussion of Scheme) ...
>Scheme is one of the most widely implemented languages, running on all
>of the popular architectures, is well defined by a clear and concise
>report, ...
>
I will look up the reference you gave on Scheme.  Sounds like something
I should at least know about.

>
>john> [ ... about computational physics lacking an established tradition
>john> and academic respectability as a subject of its own ... ]
>
>Well, this is not really languages, but so what? :-). I can console you
>a bit by saying that physics itself was a bit in the same state three
>centuries ago. Also, much of the important results of physics in the
>last decade have been done by computational physicists. Things may well
>be turning around. Hold steady!
>

I appreciate the support!  By the way, you are right that my discussion
about the lack of academic respectability (good way to put it) of
computational physics is not really a subject for this group, but it IS 
in a way, in the sense that so much of the recent flame war
between C and Fortran (which I certainly have done my part to fan)
is fueled by the problems that computational scientists face
in having to balance understanding of their principal discipline with
an understanding of computers.  One has to sympathize somewhat if they
are resistant to learning new languages unless there is a major advantage.
It is really hard to keep up with your principal discipline and still keep
up with the rapid developments in CS.  That is alot of why it may appear
that the Fortran community is so entrenched.  It is not that these
people are stuck in the past, it is just that they already have their 
hands full and need more than one or two reasons to switch from Fortran to 
something else (these comments are really pointed at the newsgroup in general).
I don't think this is something the bulk of the CS community really
understands.  On the flip side, too many scientists resist every learning
to program worth a damn and they do often ignore the bulk of CS research.
Here is a need for another interdisciplinary activity, explaining CS to
non-CS oriented scientific community.  For example, I am a member of
the ACM and have received the Communications for years.  Yet I don't
have the foggest idea of what most of the articles are about.  I doubt
most readers of the Communications would understand the articles I read
in Physical Review B either.  BUT, I need computers to do my job, CS
people don't need theoretical solid state physics to do theirs.  Be that
as it may, I still don't have time (or interest to be honest) to make
sense of the jargon in alot of these articles.  It is therefore hard
to keep abreast of the CS developments that ARE of improtance.  The same
is true of languages.  There really is a need in the scientific
community for people to translate these things.

Well, pardon my diatribe.  These sort of issues tend to excite ones
passions (as is evident from the past weeks of controversy!).

John
john@unmfys.unm.edu