Should I convert FORTRAN code to C?

[Rob Carriere]

In article <528 at philmds.UUCP> leo at philmds.UUCP (L.J.M. de Wit) writes:
>
>The trouble here is obviously that scientists want their problem to map
>too literally onto the notation and possibilities of a computer
>language.  Strange, because C you have to learn only once (that is,
>twice if that is not the proposed ANSI draft standard), scientific
>notations may change all the time. Knowing how to work with pointers
>can improve on speed considerably.
>
Yes.  I have written FORTRAN 66 programs where I could not set the
array lower bound, and was forced to drag ``-lb'' through every array
index in the entire code.  Rest assured, it did absolute wonders to
readability (and my nerves :-) I know how to work with pointers, I'm
just not proud enough of the fact to have to demonstrate it throughout
the code.  I'll hide this stuff where it belongs, in a couple of
low-level functions.  Not to mention, *my* notation tends to be very
consistent, I use whatever makes the problem the easiest to understand
:-)
>
>>Apparently some Fortran programmers equivalence different typed arrays to
>>create structures (shudder).
>
>Now this one I cannot grasp (English not being my native language); what do
>you mean by this sentence (what are the predicate and the subject) ?
>Can you give an equivalence 8-) ?
>
Methinketh the man useth ``equivalence'' as a verb, at least that's
what Dijkstra likes to do (though he at least has the good sense to
disambiguate to ``equivale'' -- don't you wish everybody spoke ``de
enige echte taal ter wereld'' :-) :-)

Rob Carriere
"Never translate your formulae!"