C++ programming (was Newbie Alert: Beginning parallel program ming with Scyld)

[Garriss, Michael]

Assuming that Fortran compilers produce more optimized code then C++ (I have
a feeling that the people at the Free Software Foundation, www.gnu.org,
would have issue with this but...) then you have a trade off.  Do you want
more optimized code, lets say 50% faster, or do you want more features for
you program?  Many more features.  Software benefits, like us, from
evolution.  I find that C and Fortran code tends to get written and stay
static where as C++, Ada, Eiffel code grows and changes over time to address
the ideas and problems that the old code produced.  And, sometimes smarter
code is faster that more optimized code.  Just my thoughts.

-Mike Garriss

-----Original Message-----
From: graham.mullier at syngenta.com [mailto:graham.mullier at syngenta.com]
Sent: Wednesday, October 16, 2002 4:51 AM
To: beowulf at beowulf.org
Cc: rgb at phy.duke.edu
Subject: RE: C++ programming (was Newbie Alert: Beginning parallel
program ming with Scyld)


I do find these religious wars amusing. A small point following the F******
is better/oh no it isn't stuff:

compiler writers can no doubt correct me but I'm reasonably convinced that
in many cases Fortran (77 rather than 90 or later) is sufficiently limited
in the language constructs possible that the compiler is better able to
optimise the code. That's better than a random sample of code written in,
say, C, not code written really carefully knowing exactly how the compiler
will map code onto the underlying hardware architecture.

(hitting send during one of these debates feels a lot like lighting the blue
touchpaper and retiring...)

Graham


Graham Mullier
Chemoinformatics Team Leader,
Chemistry Design Group,
Syngenta, Bracknell, RG42 6EY, UK.
direct line: +44 (0) 1344 414163
mailto:Graham.Mullier at syngenta.com



-----Original Message-----
From: Robert G. Brown [mailto:rgb at phy.duke.edu]
Sent: 15 October 2002 19:37

(ex-APL, ex-PL1, ex-Basic, ex-Fortran, ex-Pascal coder,
ex-etc-that-I've-forgotten and then we start on scripting languages...)

wot, no Algol? Lisp? Lex/yacc? And shouldn't that have been FORTRAN rather
than Fortran, or are you one of those latter-day F-90 chaps rather than F77
or earlier...?

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