🚀 go-pugleaf

John Strohm wrote:
> 
> Richard Pitre wrote:
> >Why leave out complex numbers and complex
> >transcendental functions?
> 
> Because Oberon is a systems programming language, not a number-crunching
> language.
> 
> If you wanna crunch complex numbers with complex transcendental functions,
> and you don't want to code it yourself, you need to be coding in FORTRAN.
> This is what FORTRAN was designed to do.
> 
> Use the right tool for the right job.

Yes, and FORTRAN was also designed to read punch-cards just
like the Jacquard loom.

I find that distinguishing systems programming from numeric
programming is not so helpful these days. In order to
run a big job one often has to coordinate the actions of
several to several tens (hundreds ?) of machines. Even if
one is not programming a parallel computer one often finds
that one machine handles the batch queue, another handles
the mass storage, another does the visualization, while yet
another actually runs the numeric code.  The whole process
is tied together with shell scripts, and non-standard system
calls from FORTRAN. At least from a users point of view. :)

One might argue that one should use the correct tool for 
the job in each of these cases: batch-script for the batch-queue,
shell-scripts for the shells and file transfers, FORTRAN
for the numerics, C for systems work and graphics. 

Unfortunately, this process seems error prone,
and the interfaces between the various tools are not well
defined. It all seems managable, though limiting, and I wonder 
what a unified approach might bring about.

-- 
Mike Rilee NASA/GSFC Mailstop 930.0 Greenbelt, MD 20771
mrilee@cicero.gsfc.nasa.gov Ph. (301)286-9867 Fx. (301)286-1777