Why is Ada considered "too specialized" for scientific use

Why is Ada considered "too specialized" for scientific use

[Nasser M. Abbasi]

I was browsing the net for scientific software written in Ada, and came 
across this strange statement:

http://farside.ph.utexas.edu/teaching/329/lectures/node7.html

"Scientific programming languages
What is the best high-level language to use for scientific programming? 
This, unfortunately, is a highly contentious question. Over the years, 
literally hundreds of high-level languages have been developed. However, few 
have stood the test of time. Many languages (e.g., Algol, Pascal, Haskell) 
can be dismissed as ephemeral computer science fads. Others (e.g., Cobol, 
Lisp, Ada) are too specialized to adapt for scientific use.

......

The remaining options are FORTRAN 77 and C. I have chosen to use C "

I find this strange, because I think Ada can be the best programming 
language for numerical work.  So, I do not know why the author above thinks 
Ada is "too specialized to adapt for scientific use".  Is there something in 
Ada which makes it hard to use for  scientific  programming?

The main problem I see with Ada for scientific use is that it does not have 
as nearly as many packages and functions ready to use output of the box for 
this, other than that, the language itself I think is better than Fortran 
and C for scientific work.

(the above quote is from a course on Computational Physics at University of 
Texas at Austin, may be I should write to the professor and ask him why he 
said that, but I am not sure I'll get an answer, my experience is that most 
professors do not answer email :)

--Nasser 

Re: Why is Ada considered "too specialized" for scientific use

[J-P. Rosen]

Nasser M. Abbasi a �crit :
> I was browsing the net for scientific software written in Ada, and came 
> across this strange statement:
> 
> http://farside.ph.utexas.edu/teaching/329/lectures/node7.html
> 
> "Scientific programming languages
> What is the best high-level language to use for scientific programming? 
> This, unfortunately, is a highly contentious question. Over the years, 
> literally hundreds of high-level languages have been developed. However, few 
> have stood the test of time. Many languages (e.g., Algol, Pascal, Haskell) 
> can be dismissed as ephemeral computer science fads. Others (e.g., Cobol, 
> Lisp, Ada) are too specialized to adapt for scientific use.
> 
> ......
> 
> The remaining options are FORTRAN 77 and C. I have chosen to use C "
Sigh... I understand people who stay with Fortran for scientific
programming. I can't understand the benefit of switching to C. C is too
specialized (for system programming) to be acceptable for scientific
programming ;-)

> I find this strange, because I think Ada can be the best programming 
> language for numerical work.  So, I do not know why the author above thinks 
> Ada is "too specialized to adapt for scientific use".  Is there something in 
> Ada which makes it hard to use for  scientific  programming?
> 
There are lots of things that make it better: guaranteed accuracy,
including for the mathematical library, convenient manipulation of
arrays, concurrency to name a few.

This kind of remark comes generally from hear-say of people who never
had a serious look at Ada. Unfortunately, it is easier to repeat a rumor
than to investigate seriously...

-- 
---------------------------------------------------------
           J-P. Rosen (rosen@adalog.fr)
Visit Adalog's web site at http://www.adalog.fr

Re: Why is Ada considered "too specialized" for scientific use

[Adam Beneschan]

On Apr 3, 10:30 pm, "J-P. Rosen" <ro...@adalog.fr> wrote:

> This kind of remark comes generally from hear-say of people who never
> had a serious look at Ada. Unfortunately, it is easier to repeat a rumor
> than to investigate seriously...

What's really sad is when a physics professor does that.  Aren't
scientists supposed to be the ones who test and investigate things?

                                -- Adam

Re: Why is Ada considered "too specialized" for scientific use

[Pascal Obry]

Le 04/04/2010 06:46, Nasser M. Abbasi a �crit :
> I find this strange, because I think Ada can be the best programming 
> language for numerical work.  So, I do not know why the author above thinks 
> Ada is "too specialized to adapt for scientific use".  

This fall into the category: I want to do C so I say whatever is
necessary to explain scientifically my choice.

> Is there something in 
> Ada which makes it hard to use for  scientific  programming?

Nothing I can think of.

Pascal.

-- 

--|------------------------------------------------------
--| Pascal Obry                           Team-Ada Member
--| 45, rue Gabriel Peri - 78114 Magny Les Hameaux FRANCE
--|------------------------------------------------------
--|    http://www.obry.net  -  http://v2p.fr.eu.org
--| "The best way to travel is by means of imagination"
--|
--| gpg --keyserver keys.gnupg.net --recv-key F949BD3B

Re: Why is Ada considered "too specialized" for scientific use

[Charles H. Sampson]

Nasser M. Abbasi <nma@12000.org> wrote:

> I was browsing the net for scientific software written in Ada, and came
> across this strange statement:
> 
> http://farside.ph.utexas.edu/teaching/329/lectures/node7.html
> 
> "Scientific programming languages
> What is the best high-level language to use for scientific programming?
> This, unfortunately, is a highly contentious question. Over the years,
> literally hundreds of high-level languages have been developed. However, few
> have stood the test of time. Many languages (e.g., Algol, Pascal, Haskell)
> can be dismissed as ephemeral computer science fads. Others (e.g., Cobol,
> Lisp, Ada) are too specialized to adapt for scientific use.

     This statement comes purely from ignorance.  Any person seriously
interested in good scientific programming who would take the time to
learn what Ada has to offer would find that it is superb for scientific
programming.

     Has anyone written a paper "Ada for Scientific Programming"?  I
envision such a paper as having all of the tasking-related stuff
stripped out and a heavy emphasis on the numerical issues.  Probably the
distributed programming stuff could be eliminated too; I'm not sure.  A
Paul Hilfinger comes to mind.

> 
> ......
> 
> The remaining options are FORTRAN 77 and C. I have chosen to use C"

     Both of which can be used to create programs that continue to
happily compute in the presence of incorrect data.  Sigh.
> 
> I find this strange, because I think Ada can be the best programming 
> language for numerical work.  So, I do not know why the author above thinks
> Ada is "too specialized to adapt for scientific use".  Is there something in
> Ada which makes it hard to use for  scientific  programming?
> 
> The main problem I see with Ada for scientific use is that it does not have
> as nearly as many packages and functions ready to use output of the box for
> this, other than that, the language itself I think is better than Fortran
> and C for scientific work.
> 
> (the above quote is from a course on Computational Physics at University of
> Texas at Austin, may be I should write to the professor and ask him why he
> said that, but I am not sure I'll get an answer, my experience is that most
> professors do not answer email :)

     I don't know how universal that is, but it is true in my limited
experience.

                        Charlie


-- 
All the world's a stage, and most 
of us are desperately unrehearsed.  Sean O'Casey

Re: Why is Ada considered "too specialized" for scientific use

[Peter Hermann]

Charles H. Sampson <csampson@inetworld.net> wrote:
>      Has anyone written a paper "Ada for Scientific Programming"?  I

http://www.ihr.uni-stuttgart.de/forschung/ada/resources_on_ada/
look into "SEE Ada"

Re: Why is Ada considered "too specialized" for scientific use

[Denis McMahon]

Charles H. Sampson wrote:

>      Has anyone written a paper "Ada for Scientific Programming"?  I
> envision such a paper as having all of the tasking-related stuff
> stripped out and a heavy emphasis on the numerical issues.  Probably the
> distributed programming stuff could be eliminated too; I'm not sure.  A
> Paul Hilfinger comes to mind.

A few years ago, as a scientist, I used and programmed for a complex
physical simulation system written mostly in ada, but with some modules
written in other languages (mainly old fortran or pascal models of
physical systems that was interfaced to the simulation system).

Ada is IMO quite suitable for scientific applications.

Rgds

Denis McMahon

Re: Why is Ada considered "too specialized" for scientific use

[Andrea Taverna]

On 4 Apr, 06:46, "Nasser M. Abbasi" <n...@12000.org> wrote:
> I was browsing the net for scientific software written in Ada, and came
> across this strange statement:
>
> http://farside.ph.utexas.edu/teaching/329/lectures/node7.html
>
> "Scientific programming languages
> What is the best high-level language to use for scientific programming?
> This, unfortunately, is a highly contentious question. Over the years,
> literally hundreds of high-level languages have been developed. However, few
> have stood the test of time. Many languages (e.g., Algol, Pascal, Haskell)
> can be dismissed as ephemeral computer science fads. Others (e.g., Cobol,
> Lisp, Ada) are too specialized to adapt for scientific use.
>
> ......
>
> The remaining options are FORTRAN 77 and C. I have chosen to use C "
>
> I find this strange, because I think Ada can be the best programming
> language for numerical work.  So, I do not know why the author above thinks
> Ada is "too specialized to adapt for scientific use".  Is there something in
> Ada which makes it hard to use for  scientific  programming?
>
> The main problem I see with Ada for scientific use is that it does not have
> as nearly as many packages and functions ready to use output of the box for
> this, other than that, the language itself I think is better than Fortran
> and C for scientific work.
>
> (the above quote is from a course on Computational Physics at University of
> Texas at Austin, may be I should write to the professor and ask him why he
> said that, but I am not sure I'll get an answer, my experience is that most
> professors do not answer email :)
>
> --Nasser

In my infinitely small experience with Ada as a CS student and self-
taught practitioner I have to say that's mostly "FUD".
There's a lot of pressure to make you use C or derivatives (C++, Java/
C#) or the language du jour, e.g. Python, because everyone believes it
must be one of the following ways: C's, hard, cryptic, fast, Java's,
quick, tedious, slow, or Python's, quicker, so-good-that-it-can't-be-
serious and slower. Other alternatives must be significantly worse
than one of these, no exceptions.
This is not the reason for which the languages above are used, but
it's the explanation given for not trying the alternatives.

<rant>
The only true reason for which Ada or other languages aren't used is,
as you said, the amount of available software directly usable in those
languages, which depends on the popularity of the language itself,
which, in turn, depends on the ease with which the language can be
implemented in popular architectures (x86 PC). This more or less dates
back to Unix and C being the ultimate computer viruses (cfr. "The Unix
Haters Handbook") ... </rant>

Re: Why is Ada considered "too specialized" for scientific use

[Colin Paul Gloster]

On Sun, 4 Apr 2010, Andrea Taverna suggested:

|------------------------------------------------------------------------------|
|"On 4 Apr, 06:46, "Nasser M. Abbasi" <n...@12000.org> wrote:                  |
|> I was browsing the net for scientific software written in Ada, and came     |
|> across this strange statement:                                              |
|>                                                                             |
|> http://farside.ph.utexas.edu/teaching/329/lectures/node7.html               |
|>                                                                             |
|> "Scientific programming languages                                           |
|> What is the best high-level language to use for scientific programming?     |
|> This, unfortunately, is a highly contentious question. Over the years,      |
|> literally hundreds of high-level languages have been developed. However, few|
|> have stood the test of time. Many languages (e.g., Algol, Pascal, Haskell)  |
|> can be dismissed as ephemeral computer science fads. Others (e.g., Cobol,   |
|> Lisp, Ada) are too specialized to adapt for scientific use.                 |
|>                                                                             |
|> ......                                                                      |
|>                                                                             |
|> The remaining options are FORTRAN 77 and C. I have chosen to use C "        |
|>                                                                             |
|> I find this strange, because I think Ada can be the best programming        |
|> language for numerical work.  So, I do not know why the author above thinks |
|> Ada is "too specialized to adapt for scientific use".  Is there something in|
|> Ada which makes it hard to use for  scientific  programming?                |
|>                                                                             |
|> The main problem I see with Ada for scientific use is that it does not have |
|> as nearly as many packages and functions ready to use output of the box for |
|> this, other than that, the language itself I think is better than Fortran   |
|> and C for scientific work.                                                  |
|>                                                                             |
|> (the above quote is from a course on Computational Physics at University of |
|> Texas at Austin, may be I should write to the professor and ask him why he  |
|> said that, but I am not sure I'll get an answer, my experience is that most |
|> professors do not answer email :)                                           |
|>                                                                             |
|> --Nasser                                                                    |
|                                                                              |
|In my infinitely small experience with Ada as a CS student and self-          |
|taught practitioner I have to say that's mostly "FUD"."                       |
|------------------------------------------------------------------------------|

Agreed.

|------------------------------------------------------------------------------|
|"[..]                                                                         |
|This is not the reason for which the languages above are used, but            |
|it's the explanation given for not trying the alternatives.                   |
|                                                                              |
|<rant>                                                                        |
|The only true reason for which Ada or other languages aren't used is,         |
|as you said, the amount of available software directly usable in those        |
|languages, which depends on the popularity of the language itself,            |
|which, in turn, depends on the ease with which the language can be            |
|implemented in popular architectures (x86 PC). This more or less dates        |
|back to Unix and C being the ultimate computer viruses (cfr. "The Unix        |
|Haters Handbook") ... </rant>"                                                |
|------------------------------------------------------------------------------|

No. Someone who works predominantly as something else (such as a
physicist) lacks the confidence; time; motivation; background;
understanding; and skills to waste time learning another language. It
would be better that the one language which an incidental programmer
did not become completely scared of was Ada, but few incidental
programmers would be taught such a good language to begin with, and
few incidental programmers will try a second language.

Re: Why is Ada considered "too specialized" for scientific use

[Charles H. Sampson]

Colin Paul Gloster <Colin_Paul_Gloster@ACM.org> wrote:

> On Sun, 4 Apr 2010, Andrea Taverna suggested:
> 
> |-------------------------------------------------------------------------
> |----- "On 4 Apr, 06:46, "Nasser M. Abbasi" <n...@12000.org> wrote:
> | <rant> 
> | The only true reason for which Ada or other languages aren't used is, as
> | you said, the amount of available software directly usable in those
> | languages, which depends on the popularity of the language itself,
> | which, in turn, depends on the ease with which the language can be
> | implemented in popular architectures (x86 PC). This more or less dates
> | back to Unix and C being the ultimate computer viruses (cfr. "The Unix
> | Haters Handbook") ... </rant>"
> |-------------------------------------------------------------------------
> |-----
> 
> No. Someone who works predominantly as something else (such as a
> physicist) lacks the confidence; time; motivation; background;
> understanding; and skills to waste time learning another language. It
> would be better that the one language which an incidental programmer did
> not become completely scared of was Ada, but few incidental programmers
> would be taught such a good language to begin with, and few incidental
> programmers will try a second language.

     I agree with the point of your response but not your choice of
words.  Most of us here would not use the phrase "waste time to learn
another language [Ada]."  :-)

                        Charlie
-- 
All the world's a stage, and most 
of us are desperately unrehearsed.  Sean O'Casey

Re: Why is Ada considered "too specialized" for scientific use

[Colin Paul Gloster]

On Wed, 14 Apr 2010, Charles H. Sampson wrote:

|----------------------------------------------------------------------------|
|"Colin Paul Gloster <Colin_Paul_Gloster@ACM.org> wrote:                     |
|                                                                            |
|> On Sun, 4 Apr 2010, Andrea Taverna suggested:                             |
|>                                                                           |
|> |-------------------------------------------------------------------------|
|> |----- "On 4 Apr, 06:46, "Nasser M. Abbasi" <n...@12000.org> wrote:       |
|> | <rant>                                                                  |
|> | The only true reason for which Ada or other languages aren't used is, as|
|> | you said, the amount of available software directly usable in those     |
|> | languages, which depends on the popularity of the language itself,      |
|> | which, in turn, depends on the ease with which the language can be      |
|> | implemented in popular architectures (x86 PC). This more or less dates  |
|> | back to Unix and C being the ultimate computer viruses (cfr. "The Unix  |
|> | Haters Handbook") ... </rant>"                                          |
|> |-------------------------------------------------------------------------|
|> |-----                                                                    |
|>                                                                           |
|> No. Someone who works predominantly as something else (such as a          |
|> physicist) lacks the confidence; time; motivation; background;            |
|> understanding; and skills to waste time learning another language. It     |
|> would be better that the one language which an incidental programmer did  |
|> not become completely scared of was Ada, but few incidental programmers   |
|> would be taught such a good language to begin with, and few incidental    |
|> programmers will try a second language.                                   |
|                                                                            |
|     I agree with the point of your response but not your choice of         |
|words.  Most of us here would not use the phrase "waste time to learn       |
|another language [Ada]."  :-)"                                              |
|----------------------------------------------------------------------------|

Okay, to put it another way: a computer scientist would not waste time
learning another language. Someone who is never going to be good at
programming because it is a marginal issue for THAT person does not
have enough of a reason to try to learn another language. For example,
I use a pen and a keyboard and I do not do much fancy writing so I
have enough of a reason to learn how to be a calligrapher. I do not
give many speeches, so I have not taken lessons on oration. A
politician might substantially benefit from lessons on oration, and
though might find a better language in Ada, would not really need to
be much of a software developer. I strained to listen to Tullio
Vardanega trying to speak when he was giving a presentation at a
conference. It would be good for him to take lessons on oration: but
if he had to choose between learning to be audible or defining
RAVENSCAR, which would you have preferred him to do?

Re: Why is Ada considered "too specialized" for scientific use

[Jerry]

On Apr 3, 9:46 pm, "Nasser M. Abbasi" <n...@12000.org> wrote:
snip
> Is there something in
> Ada which makes it hard to use for  scientific  programming?
>
snip
 --Nasser

No. I use Ada every day in my personal research and it is outstanding.
I can choose any language that I want and I chose Ada.

I have used other languages for research, mainly Pascal, Fortran--a
long time ago, commercial packages starting with the letter "M", Igor
Pro, SuperCollider, ChucK, and others. Some of these remain in my bag
of tricks and as most on this list will agree, you need knowledge of
several languages and you should pick the best for the job. For
everyday general technical computing, that, for me, is Ada.

There have been discussions on this list in the past about the
relative lack of technical libraries for Ada. I find that (despite
criticism from some quarters) that Numerical Recipes is excellent--it
gets the job done. (There is an Ada version that has been used as a
demonstration of the P2Ada language converter. I don't know of the
copyright issues of this, but I own rights to the Pascal version so
I'm covered, I suppose.) In any case, numerical code is usually pretty
simple (structurally) and you can easily do your own conversion from
Pascal or Fortran or C.

There are also Ada bindings to LAPACK and BLAS. Indeed, I believe that
that is the official implementation in GNAT for the new-to-Ada 2005
numerical functions. LAPACK and BLAS have been around for so long they
are probably bullet-proof by now.

There is also the GNU Scientific Library for which the Ada binding is
sparse, last time I checked. I think it would be an excellent project
to get this up to where it is generally useful.

Jerry

Re: Why is Ada considered "too specialized" for scientific use

[Nasser M. Abbasi]

"Jerry" <lanceboyle@qwest.net> wrote in message 
news:e53558e5-5a83-4170-b8eb-4c8564c1788d@g10g2000yqh.googlegroups.com...

"No. I use Ada every day in my personal research and it is outstanding.
I can choose any language that I want and I chose Ada."

That is good to know.

It would be good if there was a web page which specializes in giving 
information on Ada for scientific work (links, etc...). When searching the 
web for Ada for scientific/numerical programming, there is very little 
information. (few links, but very few examples that I found showing Ada for 
numerical work for example).

But one thing I would guess is good in Ada for numerical work, is the 
ability to define an array which can start from zero or from one.  Many of 
the formulas in textbooks assume zero index as the start of the array, but 
when using a language with arrays that start at 1, then this was always a 
source of errors (the one-off error) when it comes to implementation.

It does not help if the language array starts from 0, because if a formula 
is define to start from 1, the same problem, but in reverse will occur.

I think Ada solves this nicely by allowing one to define the type to match 
the problem. ofcourse one can say that they can just define a new class in 
Java/C++/etc... to do this as well, but I think the Ada solution is better 
as it is part of the language itself and is probably safer also.

This is only one thing out of 100's more things that I can see an advantage 
of Ada for numerical work (which is full of arrays and matrices types).

If anyone knows of an advanced course in a computational 
scientific/engineering field at a US university which uses Ada, I'd like to 
know about it.

--Nasser 

Re: Why is Ada considered "too specialized" for scientific use

[mockturtle]

On Apr 4, 6:46 am, "Nasser M. Abbasi" <n...@12000.org> wrote:
> I was browsing the net for scientific software written in Ada, and came
> across this strange statement:
>
> http://farside.ph.utexas.edu/teaching/329/lectures/node7.html
>
> "Scientific programming languages
> What is the best high-level language to use for scientific programming?
> This, unfortunately, is a highly contentious question. Over the years,
> literally hundreds of high-level languages have been developed. However, few
> have stood the test of time. Many languages (e.g., Algol, Pascal, Haskell)
> can be dismissed as ephemeral computer science fads. Others (e.g., Cobol,
> Lisp, Ada) are too specialized to adapt for scientific use.

Let me add just my 2.0e-2... I do research in communication and signal
processing
and this requires lots of programming (although I am not a
professional programmer).
To be honest, most of my "number crunching" stuff is done in Matlab,
since they usually
are "fast and dirty" tests of new algorithms and Matlab has lots of
numerical algorithms
ready off-the-shelf. However, for  my long lived projects Ada is
without doubts
my first choice (that I impose to my students too... :-]).  I must
confess also that my
third favorite language (for fast-and-dirty text-crunching scripts) is
something almost
opposite to Ada in term of philosophy: Ruby. ;-)

Back to the main topic, maybe the only defect of Ada in number
crunching is the lack
of some extensive numerical library (but it does not seem to me that
C, C++ or Java
are especially good on this...)

Re: Why is Ada considered "too specialized" for scientific use

[Dmitry A. Kazakov]

On Mon, 5 Apr 2010 02:09:53 -0700 (PDT), mockturtle wrote:

> Back to the main topic, maybe the only defect of Ada in number
> crunching is the lack
> of some extensive numerical library (but it does not seem to me that
> C, C++ or Java are especially good on this...)

There is a problem specific to Ada. A quality Ada library should deal with
all real types. (Other languages do not have this problem because they are
too primitive.) Technically this results in a bunch of generic packages
instantiated with some actual real type. Apart from being quite boring for
a user this approach has numerical problem. How would you specify and
provide the accuracy for all possible precisions, implicitly defined by the
formal parameter T? Say, the function f(X) should yield the result accurate
within T'Small or, maybe, within [f(X)'Pred, f(X)'Succ] etc. The accuracy
should depend on the precision. You also would certainly need some type
larger than T'Base in order to carry out intermediate calculations. How
would you get such a type in a generic unit?

Ada is an excellent language for number crunching by C's or FORTRAN's
standards. But this is not good enough by the standard of its own.

-- 
Regards,
Dmitry A. Kazakov
http://www.dmitry-kazakov.de

Re: Why is Ada considered "too specialized" for scientific use

[Georg Bauhaus]

On 4/4/10 6:46 AM, Nasser M. Abbasi wrote:
> I was browsing the net for scientific software written in Ada, and came
> across this strange statement:
>
> http://farside.ph.utexas.edu/teaching/329/lectures/node7.html
>
> "Scientific programming languages
> What is the best high-level language to use for scientific programming?
> This, unfortunately, is a highly contentious question. Over the years,
> literally hundreds of high-level languages have been developed. However, few
> have stood the test of time. Many languages (e.g., Algol, Pascal, Haskell)
> can be dismissed as ephemeral computer science fads. Others (e.g., Cobol,
> Lisp, Ada) are too specialized to adapt for scientific use.
>
> ......
>
> The remaining options are FORTRAN 77 and C. I have chosen to use C "
>
> I find this strange, because I think Ada can be the best programming
> language for numerical work.  So, I do not know why the author above thinks
> Ada is "too specialized to adapt for scientific use".  Is there something in
> Ada which makes it hard to use for  scientific  programming?

The text, by Professor Fitzpatrick, Physics, 2006, appears to be an
fine example of quite useful justification rhetoric.
(Of the kind well explained by, e.g. Leon Festinger or Irving Goffman.)
It is full of false facts that in general would offer
to an author the comforts of blissful ignorance and a convincing
appearance at the same time. (Who has not been in this situation?
Assuming that a quick proactive defence of your standing is
more tempting than the alternative: is to shut up?)


C99 (note the year) has complex types,  says C hasn't.  Well, it hadn't, 
as some point in the last century.

Inexpensive compilers for Fortran 90 were available that year (2006),
AFAIR, from Intel or the FSF.  NAG has academic pricing for its
Fortran compilers, at least now, possibly earlier.  There are more.

The info about C++ is rather dated in 2006---templates and
interfaces would be closer to its focus, I'd think. The remark
seems to draw its persuasive power from a brevity that only
repeating hearsay can offer, as someone noted.


During the last few months I had a chance of hearing about Fortran
versus Ada in scientific computing where the subject is concurrent
execution on many processors, with some communication.  It turns
out that there is no reason to dismiss either Ada or Fortran,
judging by the results: tasking can be as good as MPI.
There is, however, reason to believe that OpenMP does not scale
well.  (From a superficial glance at OpenMP 3.0, I see so many
words sounding familiar in an Ada context (task, barrier, shared,
parallel regions, ...). Are they performing mostly the same experiments
that, I think, were done in the 1970s? I'd speculate that the
parallel constructions aren't novelties in an HPF world, either?)

As Dmitry Kazakov has recently said, when Ada run-time systems
starts addressing the properties of multicore hardware
there is hope that it could really shine: Not just because concurrent
sequential processes are so simple to express using Ada tasks
---and you'd be using only language, not a mix of libraries,
preprocessors, specialized compilers, programming conventions,
etc.  But also in case the fine grained complexity of OpenMP 3.0
can be bridled by simple language and a good run-time system.
At little cost.

Re: Why is Ada considered "too specialized" for scientific use

[Keith Thompson]

Georg Bauhaus <rm-host.bauhaus@maps.futureapps.de> writes:
[...]
> C99 (note the year) has complex types,  says C hasn't.  Well, it
> hadn't, as some point in the last century.
[...]

Unfortunately, the C99 standard has not yet been universally adopted.
Very few compilers fully support it.  Many support most of it,
but I understand that Microsoft's compiler still supports only C90
(with maybe a handful of C99-specific features).

Which means that as soon as you write "#include <complex.h>", you've
limited the portability of your program.

-- 
Keith Thompson (The_Other_Keith) kst-u@mib.org  <http://www.ghoti.net/~kst>
Nokia
"We must do something.  This is something.  Therefore, we must do this."
    -- Antony Jay and Jonathan Lynn, "Yes Minister"

Re: Why is Ada considered "too specialized" for scientific use

[Georg Bauhaus]

Keith Thompson schrieb:
> Georg Bauhaus <rm-host.bauhaus@maps.futureapps.de> writes:
> [...]
>> C99 (note the year) has complex types,  says C hasn't.  Well, it
>> hadn't, as some point in the last century.
> [...]
> 
> Unfortunately, the C99 standard has not yet been universally adopted.
> Very few compilers fully support it.  Many support most of it,
> but I understand that Microsoft's compiler still supports only C90
> (with maybe a handful of C99-specific features).
> 
> Which means that as soon as you write "#include <complex.h>", you've
> limited the portability of your program.

OHOH, scientific programs would require best use of your
computer's resources, wouldn't they?  So

(1) why run scientific programs on an OS (still largely written in C
AFAIK ...) that by default makes a herd of programs and services keep
your computer really busy without your program running, and

(2) why not use a better C compiler (if it has to be C) even on
MS Windows, such as the ones listed below---if it has to be C?

(I should add that the MS OS is purchased at a higher price
than most alternatives, too; price was a listed as an issue.)

But indeed, even though there is C in Windows NT,

"Thanks for taking the time to send us your suggestion. Currently, there are
no plans to implement C99 support in VS2010. Once we complete this product
cycle, we will be reviewing all customer suggestions, including this one, for
our future planning.

"Thanks,
Mark Roberts
Visual C++ Team"

http://connect.microsoft.com/VisualStudio/feedback/details/485416/support-c99


So for scientific computing, MS C will be a less attractive choice
than GNU C or Intel C, or Comeaucomputing's C on top of MS C adding
C99 to MS C, or ...

Or less attractive than compilers for one of the other
languages such as Ada or Fortran or ... that support both fairly recent
standards and computing with complex numbers.

Re: Why is Ada considered "too specialized" for scientific use

[Warren]

Georg Bauhaus expounded in
news:4bbb3f22$0$7660$9b4e6d93@newsspool1.arcor-online.net: 
..
> (2) why not use a better C compiler (if it has to be C) even on
> MS Windows, such as the ones listed below---if it has to be C?
> 
> (I should add that the MS OS is purchased at a higher price
> than most alternatives, too; price was a listed as an issue.)

They didn't even take advantage of C's own type system. 
Everything flows through a WORD or DWORD. The win api
is so very lame because of this.  The C++ layer is
better, but..

> Or less attractive than compilers for one of the other
> languages such as Ada or Fortran or ... that support both fairly
> recent standards and computing with complex numbers.

Obviously Fortran persists because of existing code base and
those that only "know" that. But egads, the current rendition
of Fortran seem to have so many "bags on the side" and is
downright "butt ugly".  Why anyone would want to continue
to wallow in that swill, is beyond me. Ada as a language OTOH, 
is so nice and clean by comparison.

Warren

Re: Why is Ada considered "too specialized" for scientific use

[Sebastian Hanigk]

Warren <ve3wwg@gmail.com> writes:

> Obviously Fortran persists because of existing code base and
> those that only "know" that. But egads, the current rendition
> of Fortran seem to have so many "bags on the side" and is
> downright "butt ugly".  Why anyone would want to continue
> to wallow in that swill, is beyond me. Ada as a language OTOH, 
> is so nice and clean by comparison.

I won't even start with your puny attempts at a language crusade,
suffice to say that all the niceness and cleanness is quite unusable if
you don't have a compiler. And on most supercomputers where serious
number crunching is performed, you do not have an Ada compiler and even
building gnat would be a very major pain (bootstrapping ...).

Regards,

Sebastian

Re: Why is Ada considered "too specialized" for scientific use

[Warren]

Sebastian Hanigk expounded in news:hpfsf8$495$1@news.lrz-muenchen.de:

> Warren <ve3wwg@gmail.com> writes:
> 
>> Obviously Fortran persists because of existing code base and
>> those that only "know" that. But egads, the current rendition
>> of Fortran seem to have so many "bags on the side" and is
>> downright "butt ugly".  Why anyone would want to continue
>> to wallow in that swill, is beyond me. Ada as a language OTOH, 
>> is so nice and clean by comparison.
> 
> I won't even start with your puny attempts at a language crusade,
....
> Sebastian

Wooo-oooo, aren't we snubby today.

Warren

Re: Why is Ada considered "too specialized" for scientific use

[MRE]

On 6 Apr., 19:53, Sebastian Hanigk <sebastian.han...@fs.tum.de> wrote:
> Warren <ve3...@gmail.com> writes:
> > Obviously Fortran persists because of existing code base and
> > those that only "know" that. But egads, the current rendition
> > of Fortran seem to have so many "bags on the side" and is
> > downright "butt ugly".  Why anyone would want to continue
> > to wallow in that swill, is beyond me. Ada as a language OTOH,
> > is so nice and clean by comparison.
>
> I won't even start with your puny attempts at a language crusade,
> suffice to say that all the niceness and cleanness is quite unusable if
> you don't have a compiler. And on most supercomputers where serious
> number crunching is performed, you do not have an Ada compiler and even
> building gnat would be a very major pain (bootstrapping ...).
>
> Regards,
>
> Sebastian

Depends on your cost-model. If your man-hours for writing the code
don't count,
go on with C or Fortran. If they are a factor, maybe it's worth to
spend a couple of thousand
for getting support from a compiler vendor to port GNAT.

Thanks btw. for showing quite clearly, that it's not only the "Ada-
Guys" who are
rude.

Marc

Re: Why is Ada considered "too specialized" for scientific use

[Ken Thomas]

I have used Ada for scientific computation for 25 years. It got off to
a bad start because of the high cost of entry. Compilers were £1000+
for one licence (remember dongles).

However, the recent Ada standards (2005) are very attractive. It is
possible to interface software from other languages (MPI, Metis,
UMFPACK) and the tool from gnat g++ -c -fdump-ada-spec ... is quite
exciting. The containers are also useful. I have used an instaniation
of Ada.Containers.Ordered_Maps to contain sparse matrices.

Some of the applications are finite element software for Maxwell's
equations.

Re: Why is Ada considered "too specialized" for scientific use

[Warren]

Ken Thomas expounded in news:3bf0eb74-306c-48c4-b5ab-
858d88b4079d@s9g2000yqa.googlegroups.com:

> However, the recent Ada standards (2005) are very attractive. It is
> possible to interface software from other languages (MPI, Metis,
> UMFPACK) and the tool from gnat g++ -c -fdump-ada-spec ... is quite
> exciting. The containers are also useful. I have used an instaniation
> of Ada.Containers.Ordered_Maps to contain sparse matrices.

Speaking of 2005, I wouldn't mind acquiring a book on
the essential elements of the 2005 features in Ada,
without trudging through dry RM type prose. However,
it seems that these new books are quite pricey,
even used. Normally I can find a suitable deal on
abebooks.com, but have come up empty so far.

There must be a digestable summary on the net somewhere.
Resources?

Warren

Re: Why is Ada considered "too specialized" for scientific use

[Georg Bauhaus]

On 4/8/10 6:40 PM, Warren wrote:

> Speaking of 2005, I wouldn't mind acquiring a book on
> the essential elements of the 2005 features in Ada,
> [...]
>
> There must be a digestable summary on the net somewhere.
> Resources?

The Ada Rationale would be one such resource.
http://www.adaic.org/standards/rationale05.html

Re: Why is Ada considered "too specialized" for scientific use

[Charmed Snark]

Georg Bauhaus expounded in news:4bbe21b1$0$6759$9b4e6d93
@newsspool3.arcor-online.net:

> On 4/8/10 6:40 PM, Warren wrote:
> 
>> Speaking of 2005, I wouldn't mind acquiring a book on
>> the essential elements of the 2005 features in Ada,
>> [...]
>>
>> There must be a digestable summary on the net somewhere.
>> Resources?
> 
> The Ada Rationale would be one such resource.
> http://www.adaic.org/standards/rationale05.html

Thanks. Someone else emailed me about that as well, 
and so I went back and took a more serious look at 
it (my lazy- my bad). There is indeed a good summary 
of the change there.

Some very happy changes in there!

Warren

Re: Why is Ada considered "too specialized" for scientific use

[J. Clarke]

On 4/6/2010 10:03 AM, Georg Bauhaus wrote:
> Keith Thompson schrieb:
>> Georg Bauhaus<rm-host.bauhaus@maps.futureapps.de>  writes:
>> [...]
>>> C99 (note the year) has complex types,  says C hasn't.  Well, it
>>> hadn't, as some point in the last century.
>> [...]
>>
>> Unfortunately, the C99 standard has not yet been universally adopted.
>> Very few compilers fully support it.  Many support most of it,
>> but I understand that Microsoft's compiler still supports only C90
>> (with maybe a handful of C99-specific features).
>>
>> Which means that as soon as you write "#include<complex.h>", you've
>> limited the portability of your program.
>
> OHOH, scientific programs would require best use of your
> computer's resources, wouldn't they?  So
>
> (1) why run scientific programs on an OS (still largely written in C
> AFAIK ...) that by default makes a herd of programs and services keep
> your computer really busy without your program running, and
>
> (2) why not use a better C compiler (if it has to be C) even on
> MS Windows, such as the ones listed below---if it has to be C?
>
> (I should add that the MS OS is purchased at a higher price
> than most alternatives, too; price was a listed as an issue.)
>
> But indeed, even though there is C in Windows NT,
>
> "Thanks for taking the time to send us your suggestion. Currently, there are
> no plans to implement C99 support in VS2010. Once we complete this product
> cycle, we will be reviewing all customer suggestions, including this one, for
> our future planning.
>
> "Thanks,
> Mark Roberts
> Visual C++ Team"
>
> http://connect.microsoft.com/VisualStudio/feedback/details/485416/support-c99
>
>
> So for scientific computing, MS C will be a less attractive choice
> than GNU C or Intel C, or Comeaucomputing's C on top of MS C adding
> C99 to MS C, or ...
>
> Or less attractive than compilers for one of the other
> languages such as Ada or Fortran or ... that support both fairly recent
> standards and computing with complex numbers.

What is the objection to using the C++ complex library?

Re: Why is Ada considered "too specialized" for scientific use

[Georg Bauhaus]

On 4/6/10 9:53 PM, J. Clarke wrote:
> On 4/6/2010 10:03 AM, Georg Bauhaus wrote:

>> So for scientific computing, MS C will be a less attractive choice
>> than GNU C or Intel C, or Comeaucomputing's C on top of MS C adding
>> C99 to MS C, or ...
>>
>> Or less attractive than compilers for one of the other
>> languages such as Ada or Fortran or ... that support both fairly recent
>> standards and computing with complex numbers.
>
> What is the objection to using the C++ complex library?

(Or, in other circumstances, objections to using a library such
as Leda maybe.)
I'll speculate about two major reasons for not hoping for the C++
complex library to replace Fortran function libraries any time soon.
At least in some domains...

One reason would be successful tradition: a researcher has successfully
written a scientific program using knowledge available with Fortran 77;
moving to Fortran 90 has improved the solution.  Why switch to
non-Fortran?  The post-hoc fallacy aside, if non-Fortran is C++, to use
C++ effectively it takes learning a language integrating very many parts
in far reaching and novel ways (from the researcher's perspective).
Most parts need to be well understood in order to bridle the compiler.
To him or her, what is the indisputable advantage of C++ in relation to,
say, a modern subset of recent Fortran?  Maybe the support of physical
unit checks at compile time is an example.  But the mechanisms behind
template specialization based C++ computation are not that easy to
grasp, are they?  At least hardly easier than just moving to Fortran 95
or later and manually checking units by paying attention.

Remembering professor Fitzpatrick's published remark that started this
thread, a researcher's job is probably focused on computing scientific
results rather than optimizing language use.  So Fortran 90 it is, or
C---until a new generation of researchers and research problems
gives rise to a new tradition of similarly forced attire using another
language.  Technical arguments involving language properties beyond
immediate necessity are subordinate, as ever.  After all,
we continue to pay them for this style scientific software! ;-)
[end of speculation]

Re: Why is Ada considered "too specialized" for scientific use

[J. Clarke]

On 4/6/2010 5:37 PM, Georg Bauhaus wrote:
> On 4/6/10 9:53 PM, J. Clarke wrote:
>> On 4/6/2010 10:03 AM, Georg Bauhaus wrote:
>
>>> So for scientific computing, MS C will be a less attractive choice
>>> than GNU C or Intel C, or Comeaucomputing's C on top of MS C adding
>>> C99 to MS C, or ...
>>>
>>> Or less attractive than compilers for one of the other
>>> languages such as Ada or Fortran or ... that support both fairly recent
>>> standards and computing with complex numbers.
>>
>> What is the objection to using the C++ complex library?
>
> (Or, in other circumstances, objections to using a library such
> as Leda maybe.)
> I'll speculate about two major reasons for not hoping for the C++
> complex library to replace Fortran function libraries any time soon.
> At least in some domains...
>
> One reason would be successful tradition: a researcher has successfully
> written a scientific program using knowledge available with Fortran 77;
> moving to Fortran 90 has improved the solution. Why switch to
> non-Fortran? The post-hoc fallacy aside, if non-Fortran is C++, to use
> C++ effectively it takes learning a language integrating very many parts
> in far reaching and novel ways (from the researcher's perspective).
> Most parts need to be well understood in order to bridle the compiler.
> To him or her, what is the indisputable advantage of C++ in relation to,
> say, a modern subset of recent Fortran? Maybe the support of physical
> unit checks at compile time is an example. But the mechanisms behind
> template specialization based C++ computation are not that easy to
> grasp, are they? At least hardly easier than just moving to Fortran 95
> or later and manually checking units by paying attention.
>
> Remembering professor Fitzpatrick's published remark that started this
> thread, a researcher's job is probably focused on computing scientific
> results rather than optimizing language use. So Fortran 90 it is, or
> C---until a new generation of researchers and research problems
> gives rise to a new tradition of similarly forced attire using another
> language. Technical arguments involving language properties beyond
> immediate necessity are subordinate, as ever. After all,
> we continue to pay them for this style scientific software! ;-)
> [end of speculation]

Look, you were whining about "MS C" not implementing a complex data type.

Well Visual C++ 2008, which is the only "MS C" in current production, 
most assuredly DOES implement a standards-compliant complex data type, 
so I don't really understand the point of your complaint.

Re: Why is Ada considered "too specialized" for scientific use

[Georg Bauhaus]

On 4/7/10 6:25 AM, J. Clarke wrote:

> Look, you were whining about "MS C" not implementing a complex data type.

Did I?  I didn't. I remember saying that even in 2006 (from which
the note in question dates) there were well enough compilers
supporting C99 on Windows NT.

If VC2010 doesn't support C99, as reported, then still this perceived
lack would not have been a reason to dismiss C just for lack of a
complex data type.  And in fact, VS2005, which was available in 2006,
does not have <complex.h> for C.  VC++ does support <complex>,
but enough harm has been done in assuming that writing C using
a C++ compiler is a good idea.

> Well Visual C++ 2008, which is the only "MS C" in current production,
> most assuredly DOES implement a standards-compliant complex data type,
> so I don't really understand the point of your complaint.

My complaint, or observation, is that more than one researcher
talking about programming languages tends to act as a show man
when he or she does not really (need to) know what he or she is
talking about.  This creates gossip, perpetuates hearsay, and,
by imitation, drives the choice of programming language for
research.  Obviously then, decisions to use this or that language
will not be as informed as could be.  Chances are that program
quality suffers. I hope this observation can be shown to be wrong.

Re: Why is Ada considered "too specialized" for scientific use

[J. Clarke]

On 4/7/2010 2:43 AM, Georg Bauhaus wrote:
> On 4/7/10 6:25 AM, J. Clarke wrote:
>
>> Look, you were whining about "MS C" not implementing a complex data type.
>
> Did I? I didn't. I remember saying that even in 2006 (from which
> the note in question dates) there were well enough compilers
> supporting C99 on Windows NT.
>
> If VC2010 doesn't support C99, as reported, then still this perceived
> lack would not have been a reason to dismiss C just for lack of a
> complex data type. And in fact, VS2005, which was available in 2006,
> does not have <complex.h> for C.

So what?

> VC++ does support <complex>,
> but enough harm has been done in assuming that writing C using
> a C++ compiler is a good idea.

What "harm" is this?  And in point of fact, VS2005 has no C compiler 
except the C++ compiler that you say should not be used for writing C. 
What you are calling a "C compiler" is in fact a command line switch 
applied to the C++ compiler.

>> Well Visual C++ 2008, which is the only "MS C" in current production,
>> most assuredly DOES implement a standards-compliant complex data type,
>> so I don't really understand the point of your complaint.
>
> My complaint, or observation, is that more than one researcher
> talking about programming languages tends to act as a show man
> when he or she does not really (need to) know what he or she is
> talking about. This creates gossip, perpetuates hearsay, and,
> by imitation, drives the choice of programming language for
> research. Obviously then, decisions to use this or that language
> will not be as informed as could be. Chances are that program
> quality suffers. I hope this observation can be shown to be wrong.

My complaint is that you seem to be complaining to be complaining.  If 
you're using a C++ compiler then write C++, don't whine because its C 
support is half-assed.

Re: Why is Ada considered "too specialized" for scientific use

[Georg Bauhaus]

J. Clarke schrieb:
> On 4/7/2010 2:43 AM, Georg Bauhaus wrote:
>> And in fact, VS2005, which was available in 2006,
>> does not have <complex.h> for C.
> 
> So what?

If there is no C99 but MS and C and scientific programming is
required, this means you can only write C++ programs using MS
tools if you want objects of standard complex types. (Or choose
Ada or Fortran or ...)  But C++ was not mentioned as an option.

>> VC++ does support <complex>,
>> but enough harm has been done in assuming that writing C using
>> a C++ compiler is a good idea.
> 
> What "harm" is this?  And in point of fact, VS2005 has no C compiler
> except the C++ compiler that you say should not be used for writing C.
> What you are calling a "C compiler" is in fact a command line switch
> applied to the C++ compiler.

C++ overlaps C to a large extent. But the compilers
must arrange for the parts of the languages outside the
respective other language. However little one might think these
differences are, ignoring them can lead to error and to portability
trouble.
MS C and MC C++ are therefore, strictly speaking, impossibly the
same compilers.  But: referring to more than a command line switch,
Microsoft compilers for many languages use some of the common MS
translation technology. That does not make the input languages
the same.  Just like an Intel C++ compiler and an Intel Fortran
compiler share some circuitry, AFAIK. This still does not make
C++ or Fortran interchangeable.  GCC can be made to translate
a number of languages.  That does not make the languages basically
the same, and not even does it make the dialects of C the same:
GCC with -std=c99 and with -std=c89 accept a different set of programs.
Even when the effective compiler "program" is changed "merely" by a
switch.  You might call this nitpicking, but observing the little
differences contribute to program quality IMO.  If the latter
does not count, then why bother to consider language properties
in the first place?


> My complaint is that you seem to be complaining to be complaining.  If
> you're using a C++ compiler then write C++, don't whine because its C
> support is half-assed.

Fitzpatrick wanted to write C, not C++, and he wanted standard
complex types.  So why should he be using a C++ compiler with
half-assed support for C99 without complex?  (He, not me.)

Writing C using a C++ compiler creates, in addition to other things,
the hurdle of having to understand C++ in order to make sense of
error messages. (But OTOH, the C++ error messages of some compilers
*can* be a lot better than C's in some situations.)  The unfortunate
notion behind "C/C++" incidentally creates a business opportunity for
those who wish to be consultants, recongnizing the "pragmatically"
blurred approach to language use.  Note that this is not the same as
integrating modules written in C and other parts of a program written
in C++.

But this is moving off topic.

Re: Why is Ada considered "too specialized" for scientific use

[Keith Thompson]

"J. Clarke" <jclarke.usenet@cox.net> writes:
[...]
> Well Visual C++ 2008, which is the only "MS C" in current production,
> most assuredly DOES implement a standards-compliant complex data type,
> so I don't really understand the point of your complaint.

This is off-topic, but ...

I'm sure the C++ compiler implements C++'s complex type.  Does it
support C99 complex types when invoked as a C compiler?  They're
defined quite differently; they have to be, since standard C doesn't
have operator overloading.

Here's a test case, a complete translation unit that should compile
without error with a conforming C99 compiler:

double _Complex new;

C and C++ are two different languages.

-- 
Keith Thompson (The_Other_Keith) kst-u@mib.org  <http://www.ghoti.net/~kst>
Nokia
"We must do something.  This is something.  Therefore, we must do this."
    -- Antony Jay and Jonathan Lynn, "Yes Minister"

Re: Why is Ada considered "too specialized" for scientific use

[J. Clarke]

On 4/7/2010 1:05 PM, Keith Thompson wrote:
> "J. Clarke"<jclarke.usenet@cox.net>  writes:
> [...]
>> Well Visual C++ 2008, which is the only "MS C" in current production,
>> most assuredly DOES implement a standards-compliant complex data type,
>> so I don't really understand the point of your complaint.
>
> This is off-topic, but ...
>
> I'm sure the C++ compiler implements C++'s complex type.  Does it
> support C99 complex types when invoked as a C compiler?  They're
> defined quite differently; they have to be, since standard C doesn't
> have operator overloading.
>
> Here's a test case, a complete translation unit that should compile
> without error with a conforming C99 compiler:
>
> double _Complex new;
>
> C and C++ are two different languages.

Precisely.  And Microsoft is not touting any of their current projects 
as a C compiler so why should they support C99?

Look, you have a choice, you can use C or you can use Microsoft 
compilers, but if you're expecting state of the art C from Microsoft 
you've come to the wrong shop.

I just don't understand what's so great about C that one MUST use it in 
preference to C++.

Re: Why is Ada considered "too specialized" for scientific use

[BrianG]

Georg Bauhaus wrote:
> Keith Thompson schrieb:
>> Georg Bauhaus <rm-host.bauhaus@maps.futureapps.de> writes:
>> [...]
>>> C99 (note the year) has complex types,  says C hasn't.  Well, it
>>> hadn't, as some point in the last century.
>> [...]
>>
>> Unfortunately, the C99 standard has not yet been universally adopted.
>> Very few compilers fully support it.  

And this differs from Ada'05 how?  How many compilers support it?  More 
importantly (to me), how many non-compiler tools support it?

--Bg

Re: Why is Ada considered "too specialized" for scientific use

[Georg Bauhaus]

BrianG schrieb:
> Georg Bauhaus wrote:
>> Keith Thompson schrieb:
>>> Georg Bauhaus <rm-host.bauhaus@maps.futureapps.de> writes:
>>> [...]
>>>> C99 (note the year) has complex types,  says C hasn't.  Well, it
>>>> hadn't, as some point in the last century.
>>> [...]
>>>
>>> Unfortunately, the C99 standard has not yet been universally adopted.
>>> Very few compilers fully support it.  
> 
> And this differs from Ada'05 how?

By (1) the number of years between standard publication and
support of basic data types and (2) that complex is much older in
both Fortran and Ada than it is in C99.  But I said that C99 *is*
available in 2006, Keith Thompson noted that MS C (not MS C++)
is among those implementations that do not *fully* support C99.
If only there was a 3rd edition of K&R. I'd hope that (since
almost everyone is still relying to C in spite of everything) this
new edition could draw attention to at least the new and better
type stuff, even when it keeps being as suboptimal as C arrays.


>  How many compilers support it?

Fewer than the total number of compilers (Ada 95 or Ada 2005)
available, TTBOMK.


>  More
> importantly (to me), how many non-compiler tools support it?

Don't know.  Syntax tools have few new things to deal with.
X-language tools might even be ahead if they had already supported
multiple inheritance of interfaces.  Other tools for source code
analysis announce to support Ada 2005.  Some makers depend on customer
demand and either fade or grow.

WRT scientific computing, there is one noteworthy development:
an Ada subset called SPARK, which I guess is sharing perspective
with Fortran subset F in a sense.
In part, SPARK brings back some of the spirit of original Ada 83,
even when including newer language features into a reasonably small
subset.  I think that this subset includes stuff very
valuable in scientific programming, insofar as the latter will
profit from data types and array indexing proven mathematically to
be correct, so, for example, leaving out bounds checking is no
longer an adventure but becomes a justified consequence.

Re: Why is Ada considered "too specialized" for scientific use

[BrianG]

Georg Bauhaus wrote:
> BrianG schrieb:
>> Georg Bauhaus wrote:
>>> Keith Thompson schrieb:

(Sorry, I only meant to retain this paragraph:)
>>>> Unfortunately, the C99 standard has not yet been universally adopted.
>>>> Very few compilers fully support it.  
>> And this differs from Ada'05 how?
> 
...
> 
> 
>>  How many compilers support it?
> 
> Fewer than the total number of compilers (Ada 95 or Ada 2005)
> available, TTBOMK.
> 
Is it more than 1?  I don't remember hearing anything about other support.

> 
>>  More
>> importantly (to me), how many non-compiler tools support it?
> 
> Don't know.  Syntax tools have few new things to deal with.
> X-language tools might even be ahead if they had already supported
> multiple inheritance of interfaces.  Other tools for source code
> analysis announce to support Ada 2005.  Some makers depend on customer
> demand and either fade or grow.
> 

And some demand customers pay them to develop the upgrade, which the 
customer will have to pay for the privilege of using.

If you want sustainable software, you can't rely on languages/versions 
that are not widely supported.  It may not have been that many years 
since Ada'05 (what, basically 3 years, in essense?), but Ada'1z is 
already in work.  When it's finished, what will the ration of '05 to 
'95-only tools be?

Sorry, getting off of soapbox now.  Maybe I ought to put wheels on it 
and take a ride downhill.

Re: Why is Ada considered "too specialized" for scientific use

[Robert A Duff]

BrianG <briang000@gmail.com> writes:

> Georg Bauhaus wrote:
>> BrianG schrieb:
>>>  How many compilers support it?
>> Fewer than the total number of compilers (Ada 95 or Ada 2005)
>> available, TTBOMK.
>>
> Is it more than 1?  I don't remember hearing anything about other support.

Well, if you count each host/target pair as a compiler, there are quite a lot
of Ada compilers supporting the full Ada 2005 language.  All
of those are based on GNAT, as far as I know.  There are also
non-GNAT ones that have partial support.

- Bob

Re: Why is Ada considered "too specialized" for scientific use

[Georg Bauhaus]

On 4/8/10 2:20 AM, BrianG wrote:
> Georg Bauhaus wrote:
>> BrianG schrieb:
>>> Georg Bauhaus wrote:
>>>> Keith Thompson schrieb:
>
> (Sorry, I only meant to retain this paragraph:)
>>>>> Unfortunately, the C99 standard has not yet been universally adopted.
>>>>> Very few compilers fully support it.
>>> And this differs from Ada'05 how?
>>
> ...
>>
>>
>>> How many compilers support it?
>>
>> Fewer than the total number of compilers (Ada 95 or Ada 2005)
>> available, TTBOMK.
>>
> Is it more than 1? I don't remember hearing anything about other support.

Can't speak for the makers, and my copies of non-GNAT compilers
would need an update.  However, some hints.  Even a few years ago
a non-GNAT front end had some messages saying something to the
effect that "this feature is only available in Ada 2005";
   I bet that the front end maker focused on analyzing
program text more thoroughly than is needed in order to just compile
it will have some support for the pre/post/inv features of 201Z,
an important addition to the language IMHO.
Likewise, it seems almost necessarily true to me that Janus/Ada
has  Ada.Containers.  This is still speculation but will
picture the Ada situation quite similar to what you find
to be the case for other multi-vendor languages.

Re: Why is Ada considered "too specialized" for scientific use

[Florian Weimer]

* Keith Thompson:

> Unfortunately, the C99 standard has not yet been universally adopted.
> Very few compilers fully support it.  Many support most of it,
> but I understand that Microsoft's compiler still supports only C90
> (with maybe a handful of C99-specific features).

SPEC2006 contains a benchmark which needs C99 complex values (or some
variant of that), so you better support that, or you can't get a
score.

Re: Why is Ada considered "too specialized" for scientific use

[none]

On Mon, 05 Apr 2010 13:19:07 +0200, Georg Bauhaus wrote:

> On 4/4/10 6:46 AM, Nasser M. Abbasi wrote:
>> I was browsing the net for scientific software written in Ada, and came
>> across this strange statement:
>>
>> http://farside.ph.utexas.edu/teaching/329/lectures/node7.html
>>
>> "Scientific programming languages
>> What is the best high-level language to use for scientific programming?
>> This, unfortunately, is a highly contentious question. Over the years,
>> literally hundreds of high-level languages have been developed. However, few
>> have stood the test of time. Many languages (e.g., Algol, Pascal, Haskell)
>> can be dismissed as ephemeral computer science fads. Others (e.g., Cobol,
>> Lisp, Ada) are too specialized to adapt for scientific use.
>>
>> ......
>>
>> The remaining options are FORTRAN 77 and C. I have chosen to use C "
>>
>> I find this strange, because I think Ada can be the best programming
>> language for numerical work.  So, I do not know why the author above thinks
>> Ada is "too specialized to adapt for scientific use".  Is there something in
>> Ada which makes it hard to use for  scientific  programming?
> 
> The text, by Professor Fitzpatrick, Physics, 2006, appears to be an
> fine example of quite useful justification rhetoric.
> (Of the kind well explained by, e.g. Leon Festinger or Irving Goffman.)
> It is full of false facts that in general would offer
> to an author the comforts of blissful ignorance and a convincing
> appearance at the same time. (Who has not been in this situation?
> Assuming that a quick proactive defence of your standing is
> more tempting than the alternative: is to shut up?)
> 
> 

The only reason I can think of is pure fashion - Ada has not been taken up
as a popular programming language for scientific use, therefore it is not
suitable. But choosing a language based on popularity is not the best
approach - although it does have some validity, providing you recognise
that popular today does not mean popular when you *really* need
maintenance on the software.

Dismissing Algol as ephemeral ignores its influence and continuing usage
as a base of pseudo-codes. Important numerical libraries were first
implemented in ALgol, and later translated to Fortran when Algol's
momentum faltered. But that again confuses usefulness of a language for
scientific programming with popularity. Ada is heavily influenced by
Algol, and I can see nothing in Ada that would prohibbit is wider uptake -
other, again, than fashion. It was a language designed to promote
re-usability, maximise correctness, and include efficiency and
portability, and still has a variety of compilers available, so I can't
see any reason why *not* to use it, if you are proficient in its use. 

Re: Why is Ada considered "too specialized" for scientific use

[robin]

"none" <none@none.net> wrote in message news:pan.2010.04.05.20.51.46.20000@none.net...
| On Mon, 05 Apr 2010 13:19:07 +0200, Georg Bauhaus wrote:
|
| Dismissing Algol as ephemeral ignores its influence and continuing usage
| as a base of pseudo-codes. Important numerical libraries were first
| implemented in ALgol,

No, they were first implemented in machine code,
and later rewritten in Algol and FORTRAN.
The numerical procedures of the General Interpretive Programme
were written in machine code, from 1955.

| and later translated to Fortran when Algol's
| momentum faltered. 

Re: Why is Ada considered "too specialized" for scientific use

[Shmuel Metz]

In <4bba8bf1$0$56418$c30e37c6@exi-reader.telstra.net>, on 04/06/2010
   at 11:18 AM, "robin" <robin51@dodo.com.au> said:

>No, they

Who is "they"? Note the lack of a universal qualifier. Are you claiming
that all algorithms were developed first in machine code, much less all
algorithms developed in the 1960's and 1970's? For that matter, do you
know of *any* algorithm that was first developed in machine code? I'm sure
that there were some, but I'd expect them to be rare as hen's teeth and
mostly limited to the 1950's and very early 1950's.

-- 
Shmuel (Seymour J.) Metz, SysProg and JOAT  <http://patriot.net/~shmuel>

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Re: Why is Ada considered "too specialized" for scientific use

[robin]

"Shmuel (Seymour J.) Metz" <spamtrap@library.lspace.org.invalid> wrote in message 
news:4bbb2246$8$fuzhry+tra$mr2ice@news.patriot.net...
| In <4bba8bf1$0$56418$c30e37c6@exi-reader.telstra.net>, on 04/06/2010
|   at 11:18 AM, "robin" <robin51@dodo.com.au> said:
|
| >No, they
|
| Who is "they"? Note the lack of a universal qualifier.

Because you cut the sentence and the one before it,
you lost the significance.

Restoring it, we have:

"| Dismissing Algol as ephemeral ignores its influence and continuing usage
"| as a base of pseudo-codes. Important numerical libraries were first
"| implemented in ALgol,

"No, they were first implemented in machine code,
"and later rewritten in Algol and FORTRAN."

you can see that it is patently obvious that "they" refers
to "Important Numerical libraries".


| Are you claiming
| that all algorithms were developed first in machine code,

You will also realize that it's referring to important ones,
and that it's disputing the claim that such libraries were first implemented in Algol.


| much less all
| algorithms developed in the 1960's and 1970's? For that matter, do you
| know of *any* algorithm that was first developed in machine code? I'm sure
| that there were some, but I'd expect them to be rare as hen's teeth and
| mostly limited to the 1950's and very early 1950's.

Restoring the immediately following sentence that you also cut out,
we see that I said:

   "The numerical procedures of the General Interpretive Programme
   "were written in machine code, from 1955."

which means that the procedures of "General Interpretive Programme"
were written in machine code, from 1955 --
which predates Algol by several years, does it not?

As for your supercilious question, do I <<know of *any* algorithm that was first
developed in machine code?>> --

Had you actually read my post, you would have seen that I gave
reference to a important numerical library.

Come to think of any numerical algorithm developed before Algol,
you may have heard of J. H. Wilkinson's work on numerical algorithms,
for which he wrote machine code from 1947.  In his other early work,
he wrote programs (machine code) to solve simultaneous equations
back in about 1951.

as for any algorhtin 

Re: Why is Ada considered "too specialized" for scientific use

[Shmuel Metz]

In <4bbb5386$0$56422$c30e37c6@exi-reader.telstra.net>, on 04/07/2010
   at 01:30 AM, "robin" <robin51@dodo.com.au> said:

>Because you cut the sentence and the one before it,
>you lost the significance.

No. You still don't get the significance of what you replied to.

>Restoring it, we have:

Bupkis.

>"| Dismissing Algol as ephemeral ignores its influence and continuing
>usage "| as a base of pseudo-codes. Important numerical libraries were
>first "| implemented in ALgol,

Read it carefully this time and note what words it doesn't contain.

>"No, they were first implemented in machine code,
>"and later rewritten in Algol and FORTRAN."
>you can see that it is patently obvious that "they" refers
>to "Important Numerical libraries".

Then Does "No" also refer to them? Because that "No" is dead wrong.

>You will also realize that it's referring to important ones,

Who decides what's important? Do you believe that no important algorithms
were written in the late 1950's, the 1960's and the 1970's?

>and that it's disputing the claim that such libraries were first
>implemented in Algol.

Yes, because you're confusing existential quantifiers with universal
quantifiers.

>Restoring the immediately following sentence that you also cut out,

Because it was irrelevant.

>we see that I said:
>   "The numerical procedures of the General Interpretive Programme
>   "were written in machine code, from 1955."

Which has nothing to do with the point in dispute.


>Had you actually read my post,

ROTF,LMAO. Too bad you didn't read your own post before replying to mine.

>you would have seen that I gave reference to a important numerical 
>library.

Strangely enough, I also noticed that it was a library, not an algorithm.
I also noticed that the algorithms in it were not the only algorithms ever
to be developed.

>Come to think of any numerical algorithm developed before Algol, you may
>have heard of J. H. Wilkinson's work on numerical algorithms, for which
>he wrote machine code from 1947. 

Algorithms that were developed on dead trees. Translations of existing
algorithms are not what is in dispute.

-- 
Shmuel (Seymour J.) Metz, SysProg and JOAT  <http://patriot.net/~shmuel>

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Re: Why is Ada considered "too specialized" for scientific use

[robin]

"Shmuel (Seymour J.) Metz" <spamtrap@library.lspace.org.invalid> wrote in message 
news:4bbbc752$2$fuzhry+tra$mr2ice@news.patriot.net...
| Who decides what's important? Do you believe that no important algorithms
| were written in the late 1950's, the 1960's and the 1970's?

I already pointed out that important algorithms were first written
in machine code in the 1950s ;  In fact, a whole suite of them --
all before they were written in Algol. 

Re: Why is Ada considered "too specialized" for scientific use

[J. Clarke]

On 4/14/2010 5:32 AM, robin wrote:
> "Shmuel (Seymour J.) Metz"<spamtrap@library.lspace.org.invalid>  wrote in message
> news:4bbbc752$2$fuzhry+tra$mr2ice@news.patriot.net...
> | Who decides what's important? Do you believe that no important algorithms
> | were written in the late 1950's, the 1960's and the 1970's?
>
> I already pointed out that important algorithms were first written
> in machine code in the 1950s ;  In fact, a whole suite of them --
> all before they were written in Algol.

And the Euclidean Algorithm was written in Greek several thousand years 
before there was such a thing as "machine code".

I think you're conflating algorithms and programs.  An algorithm is a 
procedure for doing something.  A program implements that algorithm on a 
particular set of hardware.  Most development of algorithms is done with 
pencil and paper, not a programming language.

Re: Why is Ada considered "too specialized" for scientific use

[Dmitry A. Kazakov]

On Wed, 14 Apr 2010 08:12:07 -0400, J. Clarke wrote:

> I think you're conflating algorithms and programs.  An algorithm is a 
> procedure for doing something.  A program implements that algorithm on a 
> particular set of hardware.  Most development of algorithms is done with 
> pencil and paper, not a programming language.

Algorithm is a program running on the hardware of human brain, "programmed"
in some more or less formal system. Some algorithms can be translated into
other systems (computer programming languages) for other hardware
(computers), which is a part of what we call programming.

-- 
Regards,
Dmitry A. Kazakov
http://www.dmitry-kazakov.de

Re: Why is Ada considered "too specialized" for scientific use

[J. Clarke]

On 4/14/2010 11:20 AM, Dmitry A. Kazakov wrote:
> On Wed, 14 Apr 2010 08:12:07 -0400, J. Clarke wrote:
>
>> I think you're conflating algorithms and programs.  An algorithm is a
>> procedure for doing something.  A program implements that algorithm on a
>> particular set of hardware.  Most development of algorithms is done with
>> pencil and paper, not a programming language.
>
> Algorithm is a program running on the hardware of human brain, "programmed"
> in some more or less formal system. Some algorithms can be translated into
> other systems (computer programming languages) for other hardware
> (computers), which is a part of what we call programming.

If you consider what humans do to be "running a program".

Re: Why is Ada considered "too specialized" for scientific use

[Shmuel Metz]

In <4bc5a414$0$78577$c30e37c6@exi-reader.telstra.net>, on 04/14/2010
   at 07:32 PM, "robin" <robin51@dodo.com.au> said:

>I already pointed out that important algorithms were first written in
>machine code in the 1950s

I know what you claimed; you have neither substantiated it nor shown its
relevance to the points in dispute. Which part of ":all" don't you
understand? Why do you believe that "all" is present in sentences that
clearly lack it?

-- 
Shmuel (Seymour J.) Metz, SysProg and JOAT  <http://patriot.net/~shmuel>

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Re: Why is Ada considered "too specialized" for scientific use

[robin]

"Shmuel (Seymour J.) Metz" <spamtrap@library.lspace.org.invalid> wrote in message 
news:4bc6e4c8$3$fuzhry+tra$mr2ice@news.patriot.net...
| In <4bc5a414$0$78577$c30e37c6@exi-reader.telstra.net>, on 04/14/2010
|   at 07:32 PM, "robin" <robin51@dodo.com.au> said:
|
| >I already pointed out that important algorithms were first written in
| >machine code in the 1950s
|
| I know what you claimed; you have neither substantiated it

On the contrary, I substantiated it twice. 

Re: Why is Ada considered "too specialized" for scientific use

[Nomen Nescio]

> | I know what you claimed; you have neither substantiated it
> 
> On the contrary, I substantiated it twice. 

Not only did you not substantiate it, you didn't even instantiate it!

Now the thread is back on-topic!

Re: Why is Ada considered "too specialized" for scientific use

[Shmuel Metz]

In <4bc72c60$0$78575$c30e37c6@exi-reader.telstra.net>, on 04/16/2010
   at 01:10 AM, "robin" <robin51@dodo.com.au> said:

>On the contrary, I substantiated it twice. 

No, you twice made totally irrelevant claims. Nothing that you have
written has any bearing on whether algorithms were developed in Algol 60,
and you haven't even substantiated the claim that important algorithms
were *DEVELOPED* (NOT TRANSLATED INTO) in machine code.

-- 
Shmuel (Seymour J.) Metz, SysProg and JOAT  <http://patriot.net/~shmuel>

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Re: Why is Ada considered "too specialized" for scientific use

[robin]

"Shmuel (Seymour J.) Metz" <spamtrap@library.lspace.org.invalid> wrote in message
news:4bc7a92c$7$fuzhry+tra$mr2ice@news.patriot.net...
| In <4bc72c60$0$78575$c30e37c6@exi-reader.telstra.net>, on 04/16/2010
|   at 01:10 AM, "robin" <robin51@dodo.com.au> said:
|
| >On the contrary, I substantiated it twice.
|
| No, you twice made totally irrelevant claims. Nothing that you have
| written has any bearing on whether algorithms were developed in Algol 60,
| and you haven't even substantiated the claim that important algorithms
| were *DEVELOPED*

Had you actually read what I wrote in my first post in this thread,
you would have comprehended that I said "first IMPLEMENTED in machine code"
(emphasis added).

And I twice substantiated my claim.

Re: Why is Ada considered "too specialized" for scientific use

[Shmuel Metz]

In <4bc97500$0$78577$c30e37c6@exi-reader.telstra.net>, on 04/17/2010
   at 06:43 PM, "robin" <robin51@dodo.com.au> said:

>Had you actually read what I wrote in my first post in this thread,

I did; it was both irrelevant and unsubstantiated.

>you would have comprehended that I said "first IMPLEMENTED in machine
>code"

See above.

>And I twice substantiated my claim.

No; you neither identified the algorithms to which you were referring nor
demonstrated that they had not previously been implemented on, e.g., dead
trees, mechanical calculators. 

-- 
Shmuel (Seymour J.) Metz, SysProg and JOAT  <http://patriot.net/~shmuel>

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Re: Why is Ada considered "too specialized" for scientific use

[robin]

"Shmuel (Seymour J.) Metz" <spamtrap@library.lspace.org.invalid> wrote in message 
news:4bcb3e14$1$fuzhry+tra$mr2ice@news.patriot.net...
| In <4bc97500$0$78577$c30e37c6@exi-reader.telstra.net>, on 04/17/2010
|   at 06:43 PM, "robin" <robin51@dodo.com.au> said:
|
| >Had you actually read what I wrote in my first post in this thread,
|
| I did; it was both irrelevant and unsubstantiated.

You're wrong on both counts.

| >you would have comprehended that I said "first IMPLEMENTED in machine
| >code"
|
| See above.
|
| >And I twice substantiated my claim.
|
| No; you neither identified the algorithms to which you were referring

What don't you understand about "General Interpretive Programme".
That's the algorithm.  It's the one I indentified.  Four times now.

 nor
| demonstrated that they had not previously been implemented on, e.g., dead
| trees, mechanical calculators.

That's irrelevant.
But if you want an example of that, try computer-produced music. 

Re: Why is Ada considered "too specialized" for scientific use

[Shmuel Metz]

In <4bcfaa84$0$895$c30e37c6@exi-reader.telstra.net>, on 04/22/2010
   at 11:39 AM, "robin" <robin51@dodo.com.au> said:

>You're wrong on both counts.

 1. You have not addressed the question of whether Algol was used
    to develop algorithms. Even had you *shown* that other languages
    had been used earlier or more often, that would have not addrssed
    the issue in dispute.

 2. You cited a book describing multiple algorithms; you refused to
    identify specific algorithms about which you were making claims.

 3. You profused to show that the unspecified algorithms about which
    you made claims had not already been in use.

-- 
Shmuel (Seymour J.) Metz, SysProg and JOAT  <http://patriot.net/~shmuel>

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right to publicly post or ridicule any abusive E-mail.  Reply to
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Re: Why is Ada considered "too specialized" for scientific use

[Gary L. Scott]

On 4/22/2010 4:59 AM, Shmuel (Seymour J.) Metz wrote:
> In<4bcfaa84$0$895$c30e37c6@exi-reader.telstra.net>, on 04/22/2010
>     at 11:39 AM, "robin"<robin51@dodo.com.au>  said:
>
>> You're wrong on both counts.
>
>   1. You have not addressed the question of whether Algol was used
>      to develop algorithms. Even had you *shown* that other languages
>      had been used earlier or more often, that would have not addrssed
>      the issue in dispute.
>
>   2. You cited a book describing multiple algorithms; you refused to
>      identify specific algorithms about which you were making claims.
>
>   3. You profused to show that the unspecified algorithms about which
>      you made claims had not already been in use.
>
Children, children!

Re: Why is Ada considered "too specialized" for scientific use

[robin]

"Shmuel (Seymour J.) Metz" <spamtrap@library.lspace.org.invalid> wrote in message 
news:4bd01e14$1$fuzhry+tra$mr2ice@news.patriot.net...
| In <4bcfaa84$0$895$c30e37c6@exi-reader.telstra.net>, on 04/22/2010
|   at 11:39 AM, "robin" <robin51@dodo.com.au> said:
|
| >You're wrong on both counts.
|
| 1. You have not addressed the question of whether Algol was used
|    to develop algorithms. Even had you *shown* that other languages
|    had been used earlier or more often, that would have not addrssed
|    the issue in dispute.

That is irrelevant.  It is not what I claimed.

| 2. You cited a book describing multiple algorithms; you refused to
|    identify specific algorithms about which you were making claims.

What don't you understand about the word "Programme"?
It is a computer program.

"General Interpretive Programme" is the name of the program,
and also, incidentally, the name of a book. 

Re: Why is Ada considered "too specialized" for scientific use

[robin]

"Shmuel (Seymour J.) Metz" <spamtrap@library.lspace.org.invalid> wrote in message 
news:4bc6e4c8$3$fuzhry+tra$mr2ice@news.patriot.net...
| In <4bc5a414$0$78577$c30e37c6@exi-reader.telstra.net>, on 04/14/2010
|   at 07:32 PM, "robin" <robin51@dodo.com.au> said:
|
| >I already pointed out that important algorithms were first written in
| >machine code in the 1950s
|
| I know what you claimed; you have neither substantiated it nor shown its
| relevance to the points in dispute.

Here's another example.
Don Shell published his algorithm in machine code.
(A High-Speed Sorting Procedure, CACM, July 1959, p. 30-32.) 

Re: Why is Ada considered "too specialized" for scientific use

[Shmuel Metz]

In <4bed3524$0$67490$c30e37c6@exi-reader.telstra.net>, on 05/14/2010
   at 08:50 PM, "robin" <robin51@dodo.com.au> said:

>Here's another example.

No.

>Don Shell published his algorithm in machine code.

No. Probably CAGE. Possibly SAP. Either you didn't read the article or
you have no idea of what machine code is.

-- 
Shmuel (Seymour J.) Metz, SysProg and JOAT  <http://patriot.net/~shmuel>

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right to publicly post or ridicule any abusive E-mail.  Reply to
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Re: Why is Ada considered "too specialized" for scientific use

[robin]

"Shmuel (Seymour J.) Metz" <spamtrap@library.lspace.org.invalid> wrote in message
news:4bef48fb$11$fuzhry+tra$mr2ice@news.patriot.net...
| In <4bed3524$0$67490$c30e37c6@exi-reader.telstra.net>, on 05/14/2010
|   at 08:50 PM, "robin" <robin51@dodo.com.au> said:
|
| >Here's another example.
|
| No.

It's another example of an algorithm that was first implemented
in a language other than Algol -- -and more specifically,
in a language at a lower level than Algol.

So, the correct answer is therefore "yes".

| >Don Shell published his algorithm in machine code.
|
| No. Probably CAGE. Possibly SAP. Either you didn't read the article or
| you have no idea of what machine code is.

To be sure, I know what machine code is.
I used the term in the general sense.
Here, the intent was to point out that the algorithm was not
first implemented in Algol.

Re: Why is Ada considered "too specialized" for scientific use

[Shmuel Metz]

In <4bf10c9c$0$89663$c30e37c6@exi-reader.telstra.net>, on 05/17/2010
   at 07:23 PM, "robin" <robin51@dodo.com.au> said:

>It's another example of an algorithm that was first implemented in a
>language other than Algol

K3wl, David. Why do you persist in debunking claims that nobody has
made while ignoring the actual issues in dispute?

>So, the correct answer is therefore "yes".

Unfortunately it's the answer to a question that nobody asked. It's
not the correct answer to what you actually posted.

>To be sure, I know what machine code is.

The evidence suggests otherwise.

>I used the term in the general sense.

The "general sense" would have been machine language on more than just
the 704. Pointing to assembler code as an example of machine language
just makes you look less than Frank.

>Here, the intent was to point out that the algorithm was not first
>implemented in Algol.

Which is totally irrelevant to the issues in dispute.

-- 
Shmuel (Seymour J.) Metz, SysProg and JOAT  <http://patriot.net/~shmuel>

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Re: Why is Ada considered "too specialized" for scientific use

[robin]

"Shmuel (Seymour J.) Metz" <spamtrap@library.lspace.org.invalid> wrote in message 
news:4bf114cf$4$fuzhry+tra$mr2ice@news.patriot.net...
| In <4bf10c9c$0$89663$c30e37c6@exi-reader.telstra.net>, on 05/17/2010
|   at 07:23 PM, "robin" <robin51@dodo.com.au> said:
|
| >It's another example of an algorithm that was first implemented in a
| >language other than Algol
|
| K3wl, David. Why do you persist in debunking claims that nobody has
| made while ignoring the actual issues in dispute?
|
| >So, the correct answer is therefore "yes".
|
| Unfortunately it's the answer to a question that nobody asked.

Go back and look at the postings.  You will find that it is.

| It's not the correct answer to what you actually posted.

You are mistaken. What side of the bed did you get out of this morning?

| >To be sure, I know what machine code is.
|
| The evidence suggests otherwise.
|
| >I used the term in the general sense.
|
| The "general sense" would have been machine language on more than just
| the 704. Pointing to assembler code as an example of machine language
| just makes you look less than Frank.
|
| >Here, the intent was to point out that the algorithm was not first
| >implemented in Algol.
|
| Which is totally irrelevant to the issues in dispute.

Which it isn't.  See above. 

Re: Why is Ada considered "too specialized" for scientific use

[robin]

"Shmuel (Seymour J.) Metz" <spamtrap@library.lspace.org.invalid> wrote in message
news:4bf114cf$4$fuzhry+tra$mr2ice@news.patriot.net...
| In <4bf10c9c$0$89663$c30e37c6@exi-reader.telstra.net>, on 05/17/2010
|   at 07:23 PM, "robin" <robin51@dodo.com.au> said:
|
| >It's another example of an algorithm that was first implemented in a
| >language other than Algol
|
| K3wl, David. Why do you persist in debunking claims that nobody has
| made while ignoring the actual issues in dispute?

Here it is for the n-th time :--  "none" made a claim, which I disputed
because it is wrong.  See below.
_________________________________________________
"none" <none@none.net> wrote in message news:pan.2010.04.05.20.51.46.20000@none.net...
Sent: Tuesday, 6 April 2010 6:51 AM
| On Mon, 05 Apr 2010 13:19:07 +0200, Georg Bauhaus wrote:
|
| Dismissing Algol as ephemeral ignores its influence and continuing usage
| as a base of pseudo-codes. Important numerical libraries were first
| implemented in ALgol,

No, they were first implemented in machine code,
and later rewritten in Algol and FORTRAN.
The numerical procedures of the General Interpretive Programme
were written in machine code, from 1955.

| and later translated to Fortran when Algol's
| momentum faltered.

Re: Why is Ada considered "too specialized" for scientific use

[Richard Harter]

On Tue, 18 May 2010 01:57:53 +1000, "robin" <robin51@dodo.com.au>
wrote:

>"Shmuel (Seymour J.) Metz" <spamtrap@library.lspace.org.invalid> wrote in message
>news:4bf114cf$4$fuzhry+tra$mr2ice@news.patriot.net...
>| In <4bf10c9c$0$89663$c30e37c6@exi-reader.telstra.net>, on 05/17/2010
>|   at 07:23 PM, "robin" <robin51@dodo.com.au> said:
>|
>| >It's another example of an algorithm that was first implemented in a
>| >language other than Algol
>|
>| K3wl, David. Why do you persist in debunking claims that nobody has
>| made while ignoring the actual issues in dispute?
>
>Here it is for the n-th time :--  "none" made a claim, which I disputed
>because it is wrong.  See below.
>_________________________________________________
>"none" <none@none.net> wrote in message news:pan.2010.04.05.20.51.46.20000@none.net...
>Sent: Tuesday, 6 April 2010 6:51 AM
>| On Mon, 05 Apr 2010 13:19:07 +0200, Georg Bauhaus wrote:
>|
>| Dismissing Algol as ephemeral ignores its influence and continuing usage
>| as a base of pseudo-codes. Important numerical libraries were first
>| implemented in ALgol,
>
>No, they were first implemented in machine code,
>and later rewritten in Algol and FORTRAN.
>The numerical procedures of the General Interpretive Programme
>were written in machine code, from 1955.
>
>| and later translated to Fortran when Algol's
>| momentum faltered.

You appear to be misreading "Important numerical libraries were
first implemented in ALgol".  The quoted text can be read in
either of two ways:

(1) "All important numerical libraries were ..."
(2) "There were important numerical libraries that were ..."

In short, the quoted text can be read either as "some" or as
"all", depending on context.  The natural reading is "some".
Indeed, your "refutation" requires "some".  

The general facts are that prior to the creation of fortran and
algol, almost all important numerical libraries were implemented
either in machine language or in assembly language.  Afterwards
most were implemented in higher level languages.

All of that said, it is a bit misleading to say that libraries
were first implemented in Algol and later translated to Fortran.
Some were, that is true.  For the most part, however, libraries
were developed independently in the two languages.



   
Richard Harter, cri@tiac.net
http://home.tiac.net/~cri, http://www.varinoma.com
It's not much to ask of the universe that it be fair;
it's not much to ask but it just doesn't happen.

Re: Why is Ada considered "too specialized" for scientific use

[Simon Wright]

"robin" <robin51@dodo.com.au> writes:

> As for your supercilious question, do I <<know of *any* algorithm that
> was first developed in machine code?>> --

Wasn't Ada Augusta's first program an algorithm to compute Fibonacci
numbers? That would certainly have been in machine code.

And Alan Turing thought in machine code ...

Re: Why is Ada considered "too specialized" for scientific use

[robin]

"Simon Wright" <simon@pushface.org> wrote in message news:m2tyrnjc5f.fsf@pushface.org...
| "robin" <robin51@dodo.com.au> writes:
|
| > As for your supercilious question, do I <<know of *any* algorithm that
| > was first developed in machine code?>> --
|
| Wasn't Ada Augusta's first program an algorithm to compute Fibonacci
| numbers? That would certainly have been in machine code.
|
| And Alan Turing thought in machine code ...

He did, because he wrote programs (including subroutines)
back in 1945 when he designed the Automatic Computing Engine. 

Re: Why is Ada considered "too specialized" for scientific use

[Shmuel Metz]

In <m2tyrnjc5f.fsf@pushface.org>, on 04/07/2010
   at 08:27 PM, Simon Wright <simon@pushface.org> said:

>Wasn't Ada Augusta's first program an algorithm to compute Fibonacci
>numbers? That would certainly have been in machine code.

But was it a new algorithm, or merely a transcription of an algorithm that
she already knew? And, more important, do you know for a fact that *Robin*
knew about it? Note carefully what I asked and what I didn't ask.

-- 
Shmuel (Seymour J.) Metz, SysProg and JOAT  <http://patriot.net/~shmuel>

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Re: Why is Ada considered "too specialized" for scientific use

[robin]

"Shmuel (Seymour J.) Metz" <spamtrap@library.lspace.org.invalid> wrote in message 
news:4bbdf5c6$1$fuzhry+tra$mr2ice@news.patriot.net...
| In <m2tyrnjc5f.fsf@pushface.org>, on 04/07/2010
|   at 08:27 PM, Simon Wright <simon@pushface.org> said:
|
| >Wasn't Ada Augusta's first program an algorithm to compute Fibonacci
| >numbers? That would certainly have been in machine code.
|
| But was it a new algorithm, or merely a transcription of an algorithm that
| she already knew?

That's irrelevant. 

Re: Why is Ada considered "too specialized" for scientific use

[Shmuel Metz]

In <4bc5a413$0$78577$c30e37c6@exi-reader.telstra.net>, on 04/14/2010
   at 07:27 PM, "robin" <robin51@dodo.com.au> said:

>That's irrelevant. 

The dispute is about the development of algorithms, not about their
transcription. The question of whether Ada actually developed the
Fibonacci algorithm is highly relevant to that question.

-- 
Shmuel (Seymour J.) Metz, SysProg and JOAT  <http://patriot.net/~shmuel>

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Re: Why is Ada considered "too specialized" for scientific use

[robin]

"Shmuel (Seymour J.) Metz" <spamtrap@library.lspace.org.invalid> wrote in message 
news:4bc6e42f$2$fuzhry+tra$mr2ice@news.patriot.net...
| In <4bc5a413$0$78577$c30e37c6@exi-reader.telstra.net>, on 04/14/2010
|   at 07:27 PM, "robin" <robin51@dodo.com.au> said:
|
| >That's irrelevant.
|
| The dispute is about the development of algorithms,

No it isn't.
But if you want original development, try
1. Compilers, typically first written in 1950s in machine code.
2. Nuclear codes.
3. Computer-generated music
4. Random number generation.

| not about their
| transcription. The question of whether Ada actually developed the
| Fibonacci algorithm is highly relevant to that question.

That's complerely irrelevant. 

Re: Why is Ada considered "too specialized" for scientific use

[J. Clarke]

On 4/23/2010 3:29 AM, robin wrote:
> "Shmuel (Seymour J.) Metz"<spamtrap@library.lspace.org.invalid>  wrote in message
> news:4bc6e42f$2$fuzhry+tra$mr2ice@news.patriot.net...
> | In<4bc5a413$0$78577$c30e37c6@exi-reader.telstra.net>, on 04/14/2010
> |   at 07:27 PM, "robin"<robin51@dodo.com.au>  said:
> |
> |>That's irrelevant.
> |
> | The dispute is about the development of algorithms,
>
> No it isn't.
> But if you want original development, try
> 1. Compilers, typically first written in 1950s in machine code.

I think that's a very solid case--there was no need for such a thing 
before there was machine code so there was no incentive for anybody to 
even look for the necessary algorithms, although some of the pieces may 
have had prior development, and you can't use a high level language 
until you have a working compiler for it (although I understand that in 
some cases the "compiler" was a grad student).

> 2. Nuclear codes.

Were the algorithms they used developed to be used on computers or were 
they computer implementations of the hand and card-machine algorithms 
that were used during the development of the bomb?  Los Alamos didn't 
have a mechanical computer you know--"computer" at Los Alamos was a job 
title--but they did have a room full of punch-card machines and a group 
of teenagers doing amazing things with them.

> 3. Computer-generated music

Don't know anything about that.

> 4. Random number generation.

How were random numbers generated before computers? Did they not have 
viable algorithms for the purpose?
>
> | not about their
> | transcription. The question of whether Ada actually developed the
> | Fibonacci algorithm is highly relevant to that question.
>
> That's complerely irrelevant.
>
>

Re: Why is Ada considered "too specialized" for scientific use

[Peter Flass]

J. Clarke wrote:
> 
>> 4. Random number generation.
> 
> How were random numbers generated before computers? Did they not have 
> viable algorithms for the purpose?
>>

I think the "Chem Rubber Bible" has a table of random numbers you can 
use; just pick a spot to start.  OTOH, that begs the question of how 
they were generated in the first place.  I have visions of a roomful of 
people flipping coins.

Re: Why is Ada considered "too specialized" for scientific use

[Sjouke Burry]

Peter Flass wrote:
> J. Clarke wrote:
>>> 4. Random number generation.
>> How were random numbers generated before computers? Did they not have 
>> viable algorithms for the purpose?
> 
> I think the "Chem Rubber Bible" has a table of random numbers you can 
> use; just pick a spot to start.  OTOH, that begs the question of how 
> they were generated in the first place.  I have visions of a roomful of 
> people flipping coins.

Just take any bad quality resistor, zenerdiode, or a number
of other electronic components, amplify the noise, and use it
with a bit of hardware to produce an endless stream of random numbers.
No computers needed.

Re: Why is Ada considered "too specialized" for scientific use

[Gary L. Scott]

On 4/23/2010 6:25 PM, Sjouke Burry wrote:
> Peter Flass wrote:
>> J. Clarke wrote:
>>>> 4. Random number generation.
>>> How were random numbers generated before computers? Did they not have
>>> viable algorithms for the purpose?
>>
>> I think the "Chem Rubber Bible" has a table of random numbers you can
>> use; just pick a spot to start. OTOH, that begs the question of how
>> they were generated in the first place. I have visions of a roomful of
>> people flipping coins.
>
> Just take any bad quality resistor, zenerdiode, or a number
> of other electronic components, amplify the noise, and use it
> with a bit of hardware to produce an endless stream of random numbers.
> No computers needed.
Excellent time to trim nonessential newsgroups

Re: Why is Ada considered "too specialized" for scientific use

[Richard Maine]

Gary L. Scott <garylscott@sbcglobal.net> wrote:

> Excellent time to trim nonessential newsgroups

That would be all of them in this case. :-)

-- 
Richard Maine                    | Good judgment comes from experience;
email: last name at domain . net | experience comes from bad judgment.
domain: summertriangle           |  -- Mark Twain

Re: Why is Ada considered "too specialized" for scientific use

[Dick Hendrickson]

On 4/23/10 6:25 PM, Sjouke Burry wrote:
> Peter Flass wrote:
>> J. Clarke wrote:
>>>> 4. Random number generation.
>>> How were random numbers generated before computers? Did they not have
>>> viable algorithms for the purpose?
>>
>> I think the "Chem Rubber Bible" has a table of random numbers you can
>> use; just pick a spot to start. OTOH, that begs the question of how
>> they were generated in the first place. I have visions of a roomful of
>> people flipping coins.
>
> Just take any bad quality resistor, zenerdiode, or a number
> of other electronic components, amplify the noise, and use it
> with a bit of hardware to produce an endless stream of random numbers.
> No computers needed.
You don't even need to find a "bad quality" one.  Shot noise is a result 
of the finiteness of the charge on an electron, not the electrons quality.

Dick Hendrickson

Re: Why is Ada considered "too specialized" for scientific use

[glen herrmannsfeldt]

In comp.lang.fortran Sjouke Burry <burrynulnulfour@ppllaanneett.nnll> wrote:
(snip)
 
> Just take any bad quality resistor, zenerdiode, or a number
> of other electronic components, amplify the noise, and use it
> with a bit of hardware to produce an endless stream of random numbers.
> No computers needed.

Well, you need at least some digital logic to convert it
into a number.  There is a paper by intel on their design for
a random number generator based on such noise sources.

-- glen

Re: Why is Ada considered "too specialized" for scientific use

[Warren]

glen herrmannsfeldt expounded in news:hqte3r$et0$5@naig.caltech.edu:

> In comp.lang.fortran Sjouke Burry <burrynulnulfour@ppllaanneett.nnll>
> wrote: (snip)
>  
>> Just take any bad quality resistor, zenerdiode, or a number
>> of other electronic components, amplify the noise, and use it
>> with a bit of hardware to produce an endless stream of random
>> numbers. No computers needed.
> 
> Well, you need at least some digital logic to convert it
> into a number.  There is a paper by intel on their design for
> a random number generator based on such noise sources.
> 
> -- glen

Sampling speed is another critical factor. If sampling 
exceeds the bit flip rate, then it becomes less "random" ;-)

Warren

Re: Why is Ada considered "too specialized" for scientific use

[Shmuel Metz]

In <4bd19a2b$0$895$c30e37c6@exi-reader.telstra.net>, on 04/23/2010
   at 05:29 PM, "robin" <robin51@dodo.com.au> said:

>No it isn't.

When you deny that important numerical algorithms were developed in a
particular language, how is the dispute not about the development of
algorithms?

>But if you want original development, try

>But if you want original development, try

You still are doging the point in dispute. Nobody claimed that everything
was developed in Algol, that most algorithms were developed in Algol or
that Algol was the first language to be used to develop algorithms. You're
attempts to change the subject remind me more and more of your friend
David Frank.

-- 
Shmuel (Seymour J.) Metz, SysProg and JOAT  <http://patriot.net/~shmuel>

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Re: Why is Ada considered "too specialized" for scientific use

[sjw]

On Apr 8, 4:27 pm, Shmuel (Seymour J.) Metz
<spamt...@library.lspace.org.invalid> wrote:
> In <m2tyrnjc5f....@pushface.org>, on 04/07/2010
>    at 08:27 PM, Simon Wright <si...@pushface.org> said:
>
> >Wasn't Ada Augusta's first program an algorithm to compute Fibonacci
> >numbers? That would certainly have been in machine code.
>
> But was it a new algorithm, or merely a transcription of an algorithm that
> she already knew? And, more important, do you know for a fact that *Robin*
> knew about it? Note carefully what I asked and what I didn't ask.

Sorry, can't be bothered. Especially since this thread was all about
algorithms being *implemented* not *developed*.

Re: Why is Ada considered "too specialized" for scientific use

[Shmuel Metz]

In <f5a9304e-e6eb-40b2-8944-a6ca4bc92b1b@q15g2000yqj.googlegroups.com>, on
04/16/2010
   at 04:04 AM, sjw <simon.j.wright@mac.com> said:

>Sorry, can't be bothered. Especially since this thread was all about
>algorithms being *implemented* not *developed*.

How do you develop an algorithm without implementing it, if only and a
pencil and a dead tree? Would you claim that, e.g., Euclid's Algorithm,
was not developed until the advent of computers?

-- 
Shmuel (Seymour J.) Metz, SysProg and JOAT  <http://patriot.net/~shmuel>

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Re: Why is Ada considered "too specialized" for scientific use

[robin]

"Automatic Digital Computation" was published by NPL
in 1954 and reprinted in 1955.  It is the proceedings of
a symposium held at NPL in March 1953.

It contains reports of numeric programs being run
on various computers --
solving simultaneous equations, latent roots,
matrix multiplication, solution of Differetial equations,
partial differential equations, statistics,
computation of tables, etc.

Of course, the programs were in machine code.

That symposium was the third such held.

The previous ones were held in June 1949 and July 1951. 

Re: Why is Ada considered "too specialized" for scientific use

[Shmuel Metz]

In <4c0a2e36$0$34205$c30e37c6@exi-reader.telstra.net>, on 06/05/2010
   at 08:58 PM, Dave Frank <robin51@dodo.com.au> said:

>Of course, the programs were in machine code.

Your saying "of course" does not make it true, or even plausible. You
keep refusing to actually provide evidence, or even independent
claims. The last time you cited something that you claimed to have
been written in machine language it turned out to have been written in
assembler.

-- 
Shmuel (Seymour J.) Metz, SysProg and JOAT  <http://patriot.net/~shmuel>

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Re: Why is Ada considered "too specialized" for scientific use

[Arthur Evans Jr]

In article <4c0b234f$1$fuzhry+tra$mr2ice@news.patriot.net>,
 Shmuel (Seymour J.) Metz <spamtrap@library.lspace.org.invalid> wrote:

>       The last time you cited something that you claimed to have
> been written in machine language it turned out to have been written in
> assembler.

As one who was writing programs in 1957, I can assure you that the two 
terms were then used interchangeably.

Art Evans
Old Codger

Re: Why is Ada considered "too specialized" for scientific use

[J. Clarke]

On 6/6/2010 10:53 AM, Arthur Evans Jr wrote:
> In article<4c0b234f$1$fuzhry+tra$mr2ice@news.patriot.net>,
>   Shmuel (Seymour J.) Metz<spamtrap@library.lspace.org.invalid>  wrote:
>
>>        The last time you cited something that you claimed to have
>> been written in machine language it turned out to have been written in
>> assembler.
>
> As one who was writing programs in 1957, I can assure you that the two
> terms were then used interchangeably.

I never understood this business of making a distinction between machine 
language and assembler--maybe they changed things after I stopped 
working with assembler but in my day it was a 1:1 correspondence--you 
knew exactly what binary each assembly language instruction would emit, 
and the only practical difference was that someone who didn't have an 
idiot-savant ability to remember numerical codes could learn to work in 
assembler in a reasonable time.

Perhaps he's looking for programs in microcode or something.

Re: Why is Ada considered "too specialized" for scientific use

[J. Clarke]

On 6/7/2010 5:29 AM, Shmuel (Seymour J.) Metz wrote:
> In<hugevn02qfa@news5.newsguy.com>, on 06/06/2010
>     at 11:15 AM, "J. Clarke"<jclarke.usenet@cox.net>  said:
>
>> I never understood this business of making a distinction between
>> machine  language and assembler
>
> The language level. In the case of my first assembler, the
> optimization.

If it "optimizes" then it's not an assembler, no matter what it might be 
called.

>> maybe they changed things after I stopped
>> working with assembler but in my day it was a 1:1 correspondence
>
> Not by 1960. Even before the macro era you had pseudo-ops that emitted
> no code and pseudo-ops that generated multiple words.

So?  Shortcuts to keep from having to repeatedly type a bunch of code. 
Don't do anything you couldn't do by hand and you are not compelled to 
use them.

>> and the only practical difference was that someone who didn't have
>> an  idiot-savant ability to remember numerical codes could learn to
>> work in assembler in a reasonable time.
>
> Maintaining your own symbol table would be labor intensive unless
> you're JvN; I vaguely recall that he refused to use assemblers.

He came down with cancer around the time that assemblers started to 
become common, too, and died shortly after, so one has to question the 
relevance of such an observation.
>
>> Perhaps he's looking for programs in microcode or something.
>
> ?
>
> FWIW, IBM used assemblers for the ROS on the S/360 and S/370; I don't
> know about other vendors.

Re: Why is Ada considered "too specialized" for scientific use

[George Orwell]

> So?  Shortcuts to keep from having to repeatedly type a bunch of code. 
> Don't do anything you couldn't do by hand and you are not compelled to 
> use them.

The same is true of any compiler.

Il mittente di questo messaggio|The sender address of this
non corrisponde ad un utente   |message is not related to a real
reale ma all'indirizzo fittizio|person but to a fake address of an
di un sistema anonimizzatore   |anonymous system
Per maggiori informazioni      |For more info
                  https://www.mixmaster.it

Re: Why is Ada considered "too specialized" for scientific use

[Shmuel Metz]

In <huis7g02bi@news7.newsguy.com>, on 06/07/2010
   at 09:23 AM, "J. Clarke" <jclarke.usenet@cox.net> said:

>If it "optimizes" then it's not an assembler, no matter what it might
>be  called.

In what universe?

>Don't do anything you couldn't do by hand 

Neither does any other compiler.

>He came down with cancer around the time that assemblers started to 
>become common,

Strange; Wiki claims that he lived until 1957.

-- 
Shmuel (Seymour J.) Metz, SysProg and JOAT  <http://patriot.net/~shmuel>

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Re: Why is Ada considered "too specialized" for scientific use

[Peter Hermann]

In comp.lang.ada J. Clarke <jclarke.usenet@cox.net> wrote:
> working with assembler but in my day it was a 1:1 correspondence--you 
> knew exactly what binary each assembly language instruction would emit, 

in the zenith of Assembler (-: i.e. after your time :-)
we had macros which could produce hundreds of 
statements with one stroke...

Re: Why is Ada considered "too specialized" for scientific use

[glen herrmannsfeldt]

In comp.lang.fortran Arthur Evans  Jr <nospam@someisp.net> wrote:
> In article <4c0b234f$1$fuzhry+tra$mr2ice@news.patriot.net>,
> Shmuel (Seymour J.) Metz <spamtrap@library.lspace.org.invalid> wrote:
 
>>       The last time you cited something that you claimed to have
>> been written in machine language it turned out to have been 
>> written in assembler.
 
> As one who was writing programs in 1957, I can assure you that the two 
> terms were then used interchangeably.

Unless you are actually doing it.  There are stories from the early
days of S/360 about patching object decks by adding cards.
As each card has a starting address and length, you could easily
patch a few bytes by punching a new card with the appropriate
bytes and adding it later in the object deck.  In that case,
one might actually try to keep the distinction.

Otherwise, I agree.

-- glen

Re: Why is Ada considered "too specialized" for scientific use

[J. Clarke]

On 6/6/2010 1:10 PM, glen herrmannsfeldt wrote:
> In comp.lang.fortran Arthur Evans  Jr<nospam@someisp.net>  wrote:
>> In article<4c0b234f$1$fuzhry+tra$mr2ice@news.patriot.net>,
>> Shmuel (Seymour J.) Metz<spamtrap@library.lspace.org.invalid>  wrote:
>
>>>        The last time you cited something that you claimed to have
>>> been written in machine language it turned out to have been
>>> written in assembler.
>
>> As one who was writing programs in 1957, I can assure you that the two
>> terms were then used interchangeably.
>
> Unless you are actually doing it.  There are stories from the early
> days of S/360 about patching object decks by adding cards.
> As each card has a starting address and length, you could easily
> patch a few bytes by punching a new card with the appropriate
> bytes and adding it later in the object deck.  In that case,
> one might actually try to keep the distinction.
>
> Otherwise, I agree.

The main distinction for me was that dumps don't come out in assembler. 
  But I never thought of machine code and assembler being distinct as a 
result--just two ways to write the same thing.

Re: Why is Ada considered "too specialized" for scientific use

[James J. Weinkam]

J. Clarke wrote:
> 
> The main distinction for me was that dumps don't come out in assembler. 
>  But I never thought of machine code and assembler being distinct as a 
> result--just two ways to write the same thing.

Your point is well taken for machines of the 60's and 70's, at least for the IBM ones with which I 
am most familiar. For example in 360 assembler, if you wanted to add two numbers you had your choice 
of A, AR, AH, AP, AL, ALR,  AE, AER, AD, ADR, AXR, AU, AUR, AW, AWR and maybe a few more that I have 
forgotten. There was a one-to-one correspondence between each of these mnemonics and their 
corresponding numerical op codes.The assembly language programmer had to choose the correct mnemonic 
instruction to suit the circumstances. Moreover, while the assembler may have issued a warning in 
some cases, there was nothing to stop the programmer from using, for example, a half word op code to 
operate on a variable that had been defined as a full word point value or vice versa.

I think the reason that many people want to make a distinction nowadays is that with processors such 
as the Intel 80xxx family, exactly what part of the instruction constitutes the op code is a little 
harder to pin down, and with an instruction such as

    add  x,y

the mnemonic op code add can generate any one of several dozen bit patterns spread varying parts of 
the first two bytes depending on how x and y are defined. There is definitely no one-to-one 
correspondence between mnemonic op codes and the bit pattern in any specific part of the machine 
instruction.

Nevertheless, it remains true that the assembly language programmer who knows what he is about has 
complete control over the binary code generated, although I would venture to say that few, if any, 
assembly language programmers think of what they are doing in those terms most of the time.

Re: Why is Ada considered "too specialized" for scientific use

[Georg Bauhaus]

On 6/8/10 8:27 AM, James J. Weinkam wrote:

> Nevertheless, it remains true that the assembly language programmer who
> knows what he is about has complete control over the binary code
> generated, although I would venture to say that few, if any, assembly
> language programmers think of what they are doing in those terms most of
> the time.

Would this control include control over pipelines, parallelism,
and possibly translation of assembly instructions to microcode?

Re: Why is Ada considered "too specialized" for scientific use

[Peter Flass]

Georg Bauhaus wrote:
> On 6/8/10 8:27 AM, James J. Weinkam wrote:
> 
>> Nevertheless, it remains true that the assembly language programmer who
>> knows what he is about has complete control over the binary code
>> generated, although I would venture to say that few, if any, assembly
>> language programmers think of what they are doing in those terms most of
>> the time.
> 
> Would this control include control over pipelines, parallelism,
> and possibly translation of assembly instructions to microcode?
> 

Probably more so than with a(n) HLL.  For example, if you're concerned 
about it, you can organize instructions to maximize parallelism.

Re: Why is Ada considered "too specialized" for scientific use

[Shmuel Metz]

In <7plPn.6395$z%6.5719@edtnps83>, on 06/08/2010
   at 06:27 AM, "James J. Weinkam" <jjw@cs.sfu.ca> said:

>Your point is well taken for machines of the 60's and 70's, 
>at least for the IBM ones with which I  am most familiar.

Take anothjer look.

>There was a one-to-one correspondence between each of these
>mnemonics and their  corresponding numerical op codes.

How about *these* mnemonics: B, BE, BH, BL, BNE, BNZ, BZ. All expand
to the same opcode. Even if you count the condition-code mask as part
of the opcode you don't have a 1-1 correspondence.

>Nevertheless, it remains true that the assembly language 
>programmer who knows what he is about has  complete control 
>over the binary code generated,

No, the coder who knows what he is about cedes that control to the
assembler in the name of maintainability.

FOO      L     R0,BAR(R1)
         ...
         BXLE  R1,R14,*-666

is far more likely to break when you add code than

FOO      L     R0,BAR(R1)
         ...
         BXLE  R1,R14,FOO

-- 
Shmuel (Seymour J.) Metz, SysProg and JOAT  <http://patriot.net/~shmuel>

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Re: Why is Ada considered "too specialized" for scientific use

[glen herrmannsfeldt]

In comp.lang.fortran James J. Weinkam <jjw@cs.sfu.ca> wrote:
 
> Your point is well taken for machines of the 60's and 70's, 
> at least for the IBM ones with which I  am most familiar. 
> For example in 360 assembler, if you wanted to add two numbers 
> you had your choice  of A, AR, AH, AP, AL, ALR,  AE, AER, AD, 
> ADR, AXR, AU, AUR, AW, AWR and maybe a few more that I have  
> forgotten. There was a one-to-one correspondence between each 
> of these mnemonics and their  corresponding numerical op codes.
> The assembly language programmer had to choose the correct 
> mnemonic  instruction to suit the circumstances. 

(snip)

And note that the hex value for the opcode for many of those
add instructions has A for its low digit.  Also, the divide
instructions have D for their low hex digit.  Subtract
and multiply come in between, with B and C.

Starting with S/370, some instructions have a two byte opcode.

There are now even more add instructions with 64 bit operations
in z/Architecture, AGR, AGFR, AY, AG, AGF, add logical with
carry ALCR, ALCGR, ALC, ALCG, IEEE binary floating point
operations AEBR, ADBR, and AXBR, and finally decimal floating
point instructions ADTR and AXTR.

-- glen

Re: Why is Ada considered "too specialized" for scientific use

[Shmuel Metz]

In <hugkq9$u0t$1@speranza.aioe.org>, on 06/06/2010
   at 05:10 PM, glen herrmannsfeldt <gah@ugcs.caltech.edu> said:

>Unless you are actually doing it.  There are stories from the early
>days of S/360 about patching object decks by adding cards.

And before. It made maintenance a nightmare. Assembler was far easier,
even if the assembler was slow.

-- 
Shmuel (Seymour J.) Metz, SysProg and JOAT  <http://patriot.net/~shmuel>

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Re: Why is Ada considered "too specialized" for scientific use

[Martin Krischik]

Am 06.06.2010, 16:53 Uhr, schrieb Arthur Evans Jr <nospam@someisp.net>:

> In article <4c0b234f$1$fuzhry+tra$mr2ice@news.patriot.net>,


> As one who was writing programs in 1957, I can assure you that the two
> terms were then used interchangeably.

They where not in the '80 any more.

Martin
-- 
Martin Krischik
mailto://krischik@users.sourceforge.net
https://sourceforge.net/users/krischik

Re: Why is Ada considered "too specialized" for scientific use

[Non scrivetemi]

Arthur Evans  Jr <nospam@someISP.net> wrote:

> In article <4c0b234f$1$fuzhry+tra$mr2ice@news.patriot.net>,
>  Shmuel (Seymour J.) Metz <spamtrap@library.lspace.org.invalid> wrote:
> 
> >       The last time you cited something that you claimed to have
> > been written in machine language it turned out to have been written in
> > assembler.
> 
> As one who was writing programs in 1957, I can assure you that the two 
> terms were then used interchangeably.
> 
> Art Evans
> Old Codger

I don't know what happened up to that point, but I can assure you that the
two terms were not used interchangably after 1957. Assembler is *not*
machine language.

Re: Why is Ada considered "too specialized" for scientific use

[robin]

"Shmuel (Seymour J.) Metz" <spamtrap@library.lspace.org.invalid> wrote in message 
news:4c0b234f$1$fuzhry+tra$mr2ice@news.patriot.net...
| In <4c0a2e36$0$34205$c30e37c6@exi-reader.telstra.net>, on 06/05/2010
|   at 08:58 PM, Dave Frank <robin51@dodo.com.au> said:
|
| >Of course, the programs were in machine code.
|
| Your saying "of course" does not make it true, or even plausible. You
| keep refusing to actually provide evidence,

What don't you understand about the publication,
"Automatic Digital Computation"?

I've given you the publisher and the date, etc.
With that information, most people can find the publication and read it. 

Re: Why is Ada considered "too specialized" for scientific use

[Shmuel Metz]

In <4c0bbadb$0$34203$c30e37c6@exi-reader.telstra.net>, on 06/07/2010
   at 01:12 AM, David Frank <robin51@dodo.com.au> said:

>What don't you understand about the publication,
>"Automatic Digital Computation"?

Its relevance.

>With that information, most people can find the publication and read
>it. 

So can you. The last time that I went through that exercise, it turned
out that you had lied.

-- 
Shmuel (Seymour J.) Metz, SysProg and JOAT  <http://patriot.net/~shmuel>

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Re: Why is Ada considered "too specialized" for scientific use

[robin]

"Shmuel (Seymour J.) Metz" <spamtrap@library.lspace.org.invalid> wrote in message 
news:4c0cbfba$6$fuzhry+tra$mr2ice@news.patriot.net...
| In <4c0bbadb$0$34203$c30e37c6@exi-reader.telstra.net>, on 06/07/2010
|   at 01:12 AM, David Frank <robin51@dodo.com.au> said:
|
| >What don't you understand about the publication,
| >"Automatic Digital Computation"?
|
| Its relevance.

It has the documented evidence of numerical programs
performed BEFORE FORTRAN and ALGOL.

| >With that information, most people can find the publication and read
| >it.
|
| So can you. The last time that I went through that exercise, it turned
| out that you had lied.

I don't lie.  If anyone is lying it's you.  You haven't povided
any documentary evidence to back up your silly claims. 

Re: Why is Ada considered "too specialized" for scientific use

[Shmuel Metz]

In <4c0e2545$0$56574$c30e37c6@exi-reader.telstra.net>, on 06/08/2010
   at 09:10 PM, "robin" <robin51@dodo.com.au> said:

>It has the documented evidence of numerical programs
>performed BEFORE FORTRAN and ALGOL.

K3wl. Unfortunately, any claims to the contrary exist only in your
imagination. It is not relevant *TO THE ISSUE IN DISPUTE*.

>I don't lie. 

Google for Shell sort, David.

-- 
Shmuel (Seymour J.) Metz, SysProg and JOAT  <http://patriot.net/~shmuel>

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Re: Why is Ada considered "too specialized" for scientific use

[robin]

"Shmuel (Seymour J.) Metz" <spamtrap@library.lspace.org.invalid> wrote in message 
news:4c0f7162$1$fuzhry+tra$mr2ice@news.patriot.net...
| In <4c0e2545$0$56574$c30e37c6@exi-reader.telstra.net>, on 06/08/2010
|   at 09:10 PM, "robin" <robin51@dodo.com.au> said:
|
| >It has the documented evidence of numerical programs
| >performed BEFORE FORTRAN and ALGOL.
|
| K3wl. Unfortunately, any claims to the contrary exist only in your
| imagination. It is not relevant *TO THE ISSUE IN DISPUTE*.

You have no idea what the issue im dispute was,
and others have told you so,
I have, several times, told you what the issue was.

| >I don't lie.
|
| Google for Shell sort, David.

Don't need to. I have read the original paper publication. 

Re: Why is Ada considered "too specialized" for scientific use

[Shmuel Metz]

In <4c102ad5$0$56577$c30e37c6@exi-reader.telstra.net>, on 06/10/2010
   at 09:59 AM, "robin" <robin51@dodo.com.au> said:

>You have no idea what the issue im dispute was,
>and others have told you so,

You're lying again. In
<4bba8bf1$0$56418$c30e37c6@exi-reader.telstra.net> you challenged the
statement

     Important numerical libraries were first
   | implemented in ALgol,

*THAT* is the issue under dispute, and you keep trying to pretend that
it is something else.

>Don't need to. I have read the original paper publication. 

Then why did you lie about the language used?

-- 
Shmuel (Seymour J.) Metz, SysProg and JOAT  <http://patriot.net/~shmuel>

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right to publicly post or ridicule any abusive E-mail.  Reply to
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reply to spamtrap@library.lspace.org

Re: Why is Ada considered "too specialized" for scientific use

[robin]

"Shmuel (Seymour J.) Metz" <spamtrap@library.lspace.org.invalid> wrote in message 
news:4c10b912$5$fuzhry+tra$mr2ice@news.patriot.net...
| In <4c102ad5$0$56577$c30e37c6@exi-reader.telstra.net>, on 06/10/2010
|   at 09:59 AM, "robin" <robin51@dodo.com.au> said:
|
| >You have no idea what the issue im dispute was,
| >and others have told you so,
|
| You're lying again. In
| <4bba8bf1$0$56418$c30e37c6@exi-reader.telstra.net> you challenged the
| statement
|
|     Important numerical libraries were first
|   | implemented in ALgol,
|
| *THAT* is the issue under dispute, and you keep trying to pretend that
| it is something else.

You really don't have a clue, do you.
That statement is what I claimed was not true.
I presented examples of such that were implemented
before ALGOL came along.

As well as that, I cited examples of numerical algorithms
that were running on machines years before ALGOL came along.

| >Don't need to. I have read the original paper publication.
|
| Then why did you lie about the language used?

I'm not lying.  Don Shell's sort was implemented in
machine language as distinct from high-level-language.

You still don't get it. 

Re: Why is Ada considered "too specialized" for scientific use

[Richard Harter]

On Thu, 10 Jun 2010 20:52:29 +1000, "robin" <robin51@dodo.com.au>
wrote:

>"Shmuel (Seymour J.) Metz" <spamtrap@library.lspace.org.invalid> wrote in message 
>news:4c10b912$5$fuzhry+tra$mr2ice@news.patriot.net...
>| In <4c102ad5$0$56577$c30e37c6@exi-reader.telstra.net>, on 06/10/2010
>|   at 09:59 AM, "robin" <robin51@dodo.com.au> said:
>|
>| >You have no idea what the issue im dispute was,
>| >and others have told you so,
>|
>| You're lying again. In
>| <4bba8bf1$0$56418$c30e37c6@exi-reader.telstra.net> you challenged the
>| statement
>|
>|     Important numerical libraries were first
>|   | implemented in ALgol,
>|
>| *THAT* is the issue under dispute, and you keep trying to pretend that
>| it is something else.
>
>You really don't have a clue, do you.
>That statement is what I claimed was not true.
>I presented examples of such that were implemented
>before ALGOL came along.
>
>As well as that, I cited examples of numerical algorithms
>that were running on machines years before ALGOL came along.

Neither of you clowns are lying; both of you are incompetent
readers of ordinary English prose. The statement in question is
ambiguous; it can be read as "Some Important numerical libraries
were first implemented in ALgol" or "All Important numerical
libraries were first implemented in ALgol".  He's using the
former reading, you the latter.  

Aren't you a bit old to be playing such silly games?


Richard Harter, cri@tiac.net
http://home.tiac.net/~cri, http://www.varinoma.com
Reality is real; words are real too.
However words are not reality.

Re: Why is Ada considered "too specialized" for scientific use

[J. Clarke]

On 6/6/2010 12:25 AM, Shmuel (Seymour J.) Metz wrote:
> In<4c0a2e36$0$34205$c30e37c6@exi-reader.telstra.net>, on 06/05/2010
>     at 08:58 PM, Dave Frank<robin51@dodo.com.au>  said:
>
>> Of course, the programs were in machine code.
>
> Your saying "of course" does not make it true, or even plausible. You
> keep refusing to actually provide evidence, or even independent
> claims. The last time you cited something that you claimed to have
> been written in machine language it turned out to have been written in
> assembler.

What do you believe to be the difference between machine code and assembler?

Re: Why is Ada considered "too specialized" for scientific use

[Simon Wright]

"J. Clarke" <jclarke.usenet@cox.net> writes:

> On 6/6/2010 12:25 AM, Shmuel (Seymour J.) Metz wrote:
>> In<4c0a2e36$0$34205$c30e37c6@exi-reader.telstra.net>, on 06/05/2010
>>     at 08:58 PM, Dave Frank<robin51@dodo.com.au>  said:
>>
>>> Of course, the programs were in machine code.
>>
>> Your saying "of course" does not make it true, or even plausible. You
>> keep refusing to actually provide evidence, or even independent
>> claims. The last time you cited something that you claimed to have
>> been written in machine language it turned out to have been written in
>> assembler.
>
> What do you believe to be the difference between machine code and assembler?

Perhaps he means they look different :-)

Ferranti's Fixed-Point AutoCode: v1 = v2 + v3
Binary: 000 01 0 000 00001 00010 00011
Spoken as: 0110 1 2 3

Clearly not the same at all!!!

Re: Why is Ada considered "too specialized" for scientific use

[J. Clarke]

On 6/6/2010 12:51 PM, Simon Wright wrote:
> "J. Clarke"<jclarke.usenet@cox.net>  writes:
>
>> On 6/6/2010 12:25 AM, Shmuel (Seymour J.) Metz wrote:
>>> In<4c0a2e36$0$34205$c30e37c6@exi-reader.telstra.net>, on 06/05/2010
>>>      at 08:58 PM, Dave Frank<robin51@dodo.com.au>   said:
>>>
>>>> Of course, the programs were in machine code.
>>>
>>> Your saying "of course" does not make it true, or even plausible. You
>>> keep refusing to actually provide evidence, or even independent
>>> claims. The last time you cited something that you claimed to have
>>> been written in machine language it turned out to have been written in
>>> assembler.
>>
>> What do you believe to be the difference between machine code and assembler?
>
> Perhaps he means they look different :-)
>
> Ferranti's Fixed-Point AutoCode: v1 = v2 + v3
> Binary: 000 01 0 000 00001 00010 00011
> Spoken as: 0110 1 2 3
>
> Clearly not the same at all!!!

Yeah.  On a 360 that would be two steps (there isn't an instruction to 
add two registers and put the result in a third):

LR 1,2
AR 1,3

Binary 00011000 0001 0010
        00011010 0001 0011

Re: Why is Ada considered "too specialized" for scientific use

[robin]

"Simon Wright" <simon@pushface.org> wrote in message news:m2k4qc3y0r.fsf@pushface.org...
| "J. Clarke" <jclarke.usenet@cox.net> writes:
|
| > What do you believe to be the difference between machine code and assembler?
|
| Perhaps he means they look different :-)
|
| Ferranti's Fixed-Point AutoCode: v1 = v2 + v3
| Binary: 000 01 0 000 00001 00010 00011
| Spoken as: 0110 1 2 3

Pegasus Autocode was not developed until 1956-57.
Pegasus Mark I Autocode was available from mid-1954.
(Lavington, The Pegasus Story, 2000, p. 35).

Anyway, the point I was making was that the programs
were run before the March 1953 Symposium,
and that the programs preceded FORTRAN, and preceded ALGOL. 

Re: Why is Ada considered "too specialized" for scientific use

[Shmuel Metz]

In <4c0cc11d$0$56569$c30e37c6@exi-reader.telstra.net>, on 06/07/2010
   at 07:38 PM, "robin" <robin51@dodo.com.au> said:

>Anyway, the point I was making was that the programs
>were run before the March 1953 Symposium,
>and that the programs preceded FORTRAN, and preceded ALGOL. 

Neither ALGOL nor FORTRAN was the first programming language.

-- 
Shmuel (Seymour J.) Metz, SysProg and JOAT  <http://patriot.net/~shmuel>

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Re: Why is Ada considered "too specialized" for scientific use

[robin]

"Shmuel (Seymour J.) Metz" <spamtrap@library.lspace.org.invalid> wrote in message 
news:4c0e1652$7$fuzhry+tra$mr2ice@news.patriot.net...
| In <4c0cc11d$0$56569$c30e37c6@exi-reader.telstra.net>, on 06/07/2010
|   at 07:38 PM, "robin" <robin51@dodo.com.au> said:
|
| >Anyway, the point I was making was that the programs
| >were run before the March 1953 Symposium,
| >and that the programs preceded FORTRAN, and preceded ALGOL.
|
| Neither ALGOL nor FORTRAN was the first programming language.

Everyone knows that.

But your point is irrelevant.
The question was whether or not it was written in Algol first.
And CLEARLY they weren't. 

Re: Why is Ada considered "too specialized" for scientific use

[Shmuel Metz]

In <m2k4qc3y0r.fsf@pushface.org>, on 06/06/2010
   at 05:51 PM, Simon Wright <simon@pushface.org> said:

>Perhaps he means they look different :-)

Perhaps your dog wrote the article with your name. <g, d & r>

-- 
Shmuel (Seymour J.) Metz, SysProg and JOAT  <http://patriot.net/~shmuel>

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right to publicly post or ridicule any abusive E-mail.  Reply to
domain Patriot dot net user shmuel+news to contact me.  Do not
reply to spamtrap@library.lspace.org

Re: Why is Ada considered "too specialized" for scientific use

[Martin Krischik]

Am 06.06.2010, 17:19 Uhr, schrieb J. Clarke <jclarke.usenet@cox.net>:

> On 6/6/2010 12:25 AM, Shmuel (Seymour J.) Metz wrote:

> What do you believe to be the difference between machine code and  
> assembler?

6502 Assembler:

	LDA #10

6502 Machine code:

	A9 10

Any more silly questions?

Martin
-- 
Martin Krischik
mailto://krischik@users.sourceforge.net
https://sourceforge.net/users/krischik

Re: Why is Ada considered "too specialized" for scientific use

[J. Clarke]

On 6/6/2010 1:15 PM, Martin Krischik wrote:
> Am 06.06.2010, 17:19 Uhr, schrieb J. Clarke <jclarke.usenet@cox.net>:
>
>> On 6/6/2010 12:25 AM, Shmuel (Seymour J.) Metz wrote:
>
>> What do you believe to be the difference between machine code and
>> assembler?
>
> 6502 Assembler:
>
> LDA #10
>
> 6502 Machine code:
>
> A9 10
>
> Any more silly questions?

Does LDA #10 assemble to any _other_ code than A9 10?  Is there any 
_other_ code that assembles to A9 10?  If the answer to both is "no" 
then in what significant way are they different?

Re: Why is Ada considered "too specialized" for scientific use

[John B. Matthews]

In article <hugt0702ccl@news2.newsguy.com>,
 "J. Clarke" <jclarke.usenet@cox.net> wrote:

> On 6/6/2010 1:15 PM, Martin Krischik wrote:
> > Am 06.06.2010, 17:19 Uhr, schrieb J. Clarke <jclarke.usenet@cox.net>:
> >
> >> On 6/6/2010 12:25 AM, Shmuel (Seymour J.) Metz wrote:
> >
> >> What do you believe to be the difference between machine code and 
> >> assembler?
> >
> > 6502 Assembler:
> >
> > LDA #10
> >
> > 6502 Machine code:
> >
> > A9 10
> >
> > Any more silly questions?
> 
> Does LDA #10 assemble to any _other_ code than A9 10?

Yes, but it depends on the assembler: I have two that generate A9 10,
and the rest produce A9 0A.

> Is there any _other_ code that assembles to A9 10?

Yes, but they (trivially) involve a macro, expression or radix.

> If the answer to both is "no" then in what significant way are
> they different?

-- 
John B. Matthews
trashgod at gmail dot com
<http://sites.google.com/site/drjohnbmatthews>

Re: Why is Ada considered "too specialized" for scientific use

[J. Clarke]

On 6/6/2010 4:39 PM, John B. Matthews wrote:
> In article<hugt0702ccl@news2.newsguy.com>,
>   "J. Clarke"<jclarke.usenet@cox.net>  wrote:
>
>> On 6/6/2010 1:15 PM, Martin Krischik wrote:
>>> Am 06.06.2010, 17:19 Uhr, schrieb J. Clarke<jclarke.usenet@cox.net>:
>>>
>>>> On 6/6/2010 12:25 AM, Shmuel (Seymour J.) Metz wrote:
>>>
>>>> What do you believe to be the difference between machine code and
>>>> assembler?
>>>
>>> 6502 Assembler:
>>>
>>> LDA #10
>>>
>>> 6502 Machine code:
>>>
>>> A9 10
>>>
>>> Any more silly questions?
>>
>> Does LDA #10 assemble to any _other_ code than A9 10?
>
> Yes, but it depends on the assembler: I have two that generate A9 10,
> and the rest produce A9 0A.

So pick one and answer about that one instead of waffling.

>> Is there any _other_ code that assembles to A9 10?
>
> Yes, but they (trivially) involve a macro, expression or radix.

Not "code" in the sense of "program", "code" in the sense of "mnemonic 
opcode".

>> If the answer to both is "no" then in what significant way are
>> they different?
>

Re: Why is Ada considered "too specialized" for scientific use

[Martin Krischik]

Am 06.06.2010, 21:12 Uhr, schrieb J. Clarke <jclarke.usenet@cox.net>:

> On 6/6/2010 1:15 PM, Martin Krischik wrote:
>> Am 06.06.2010, 17:19 Uhr, schrieb J. Clarke <jclarke.usenet@cox.net>:
>>
>>> On 6/6/2010 12:25 AM, Shmuel (Seymour J.) Metz wrote:
>>
>>> What do you believe to be the difference between machine code and
>>> assembler?
>>
>> 6502 Assembler:
>>
>> LDA #10
>>
>> 6502 Machine code:
>>
>> A9 10
>>
>> Any more silly questions?
>
> Does LDA #10 assemble to any _other_ code than A9 10?

No.

> Is there any _other_ code that assembles to A9 10?

Yes:

	.BYTE $A9, $10

or:

Ten:	.EQ  $10
	LDA #Ten

Did you all forget that assemblers support symbolic names, various pseudo  
codes and sometimes macros? That was the really useful part.

Martin

-- 
Martin Krischik
mailto://krischik@users.sourceforge.net
https://sourceforge.net/users/krischik

Re: Why is Ada considered "too specialized" for scientific use

[Gib Bogle]

Martin Krischik wrote:
> Am 06.06.2010, 17:19 Uhr, schrieb J. Clarke <jclarke.usenet@cox.net>:
> 
>> On 6/6/2010 12:25 AM, Shmuel (Seymour J.) Metz wrote:
> 
>> What do you believe to be the difference between machine code and 
>> assembler?
> 
> 6502 Assembler:
> 
>     LDA #10
> 
> 6502 Machine code:
> 
>     A9 10
> 
> Any more silly questions?

Yes.  What relevance does this have for Fortran?

Re: Why is Ada considered "too specialized" for scientific use

[J. Clarke]

On 6/6/2010 7:01 PM, Gib Bogle wrote:
> Martin Krischik wrote:
>> Am 06.06.2010, 17:19 Uhr, schrieb J. Clarke <jclarke.usenet@cox.net>:
>>
>>> On 6/6/2010 12:25 AM, Shmuel (Seymour J.) Metz wrote:
>>
>>> What do you believe to be the difference between machine code and
>>> assembler?
>>
>> 6502 Assembler:
>>
>> LDA #10
>>
>> 6502 Machine code:
>>
>> A9 10
>>
>> Any more silly questions?
>
> Yes. What relevance does this have for Fortran?

None at all, but it's fun to torment the "I program in machine code 
because it gives me more control than assembler" crowd.

Re: Why is Ada considered "too specialized" for scientific use

[Martin Krischik]

Am 07.06.2010, 02:18 Uhr, schrieb J. Clarke <jclarke.usenet@cox.net>:

> On 6/6/2010 7:01 PM, Gib Bogle wrote:
>> Martin Krischik wrote:
>>> Am 06.06.2010, 17:19 Uhr, schrieb J. Clarke <jclarke.usenet@cox.net>:
>>>
>>>> On 6/6/2010 12:25 AM, Shmuel (Seymour J.) Metz wrote:
>>>
>>>> What do you believe to be the difference between machine code and
>>>> assembler?
>>>
>>> 6502 Assembler:
>>>
>>> LDA #10
>>>
>>> 6502 Machine code:
>>>
>>> A9 10
>>>
>>> Any more silly questions?
>>
>> Yes. What relevance does this have for Fortran?
>
> None at all, but it's fun to torment the "I program in machine code  
> because it gives me more control than assembler" crowd.

Maybe the talk about one of those advanced *macro* assemblers ;-). Now  
that is a different story.

Martin
-- 
Martin Krischik
mailto://krischik@users.sourceforge.net
https://sourceforge.net/users/krischik

Re: Why is Ada considered "too specialized" for scientific use

[Shmuel Metz]

In <op.vdw0e7cqz25lew@macpro-eth1.krischik.com>, on 06/07/2010
   at 07:34 AM, "Martin Krischik" <krischik@users.sourceforge.net>
said:

>Maybe the talk about one of those advanced *macro* assemblers ;-).

Even non-macro assemblers take things out of the programmers hands.
IMHO the loss of control is noise compared to the improvement in
productivity.

-- 
Shmuel (Seymour J.) Metz, SysProg and JOAT  <http://patriot.net/~shmuel>

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Re: Why is Ada considered "too specialized" for scientific use

[Peter Flass]

Martin Krischik wrote:
> Am 07.06.2010, 02:18 Uhr, schrieb J. Clarke <jclarke.usenet@cox.net>:
> 
>> On 6/6/2010 7:01 PM, Gib Bogle wrote:
>>> Martin Krischik wrote:
>>>> Am 06.06.2010, 17:19 Uhr, schrieb J. Clarke <jclarke.usenet@cox.net>:
>>>>
>>>>> On 6/6/2010 12:25 AM, Shmuel (Seymour J.) Metz wrote:
>>>>
>>>>> What do you believe to be the difference between machine code and
>>>>> assembler?
>>>>
>>>> 6502 Assembler:
>>>>
>>>> LDA #10
>>>>
>>>> 6502 Machine code:
>>>>
>>>> A9 10
>>>>
>>>> Any more silly questions?
>>>
>>> Yes. What relevance does this have for Fortran?
>>
>> None at all, but it's fun to torment the "I program in machine code 
>> because it gives me more control than assembler" crowd.
> 
> Maybe the talk about one of those advanced *macro* assemblers ;-). Now 
> that is a different story.
> 

Of course that's effectively two programs - a macro processor and an 
assembler.  The PL/I preprocessor isn't tied to the language and can be 
used as a general-purpose macro processor.

Re: Why is Ada considered "too specialized" for scientific use

[Fritz Wuehler]

> Of course that's effectively two programs - a macro processor and an 
> assembler.  The PL/I preprocessor isn't tied to the language and can be 
> used as a general-purpose macro processor.

The IBM assembler macro processor *is* part of the assembler and *is*
tightly bound to the language.

Re: Why is Ada considered "too specialized" for scientific use

[Peter Flass]

Fritz Wuehler wrote:
>> Of course that's effectively two programs - a macro processor and an 
>> assembler.  The PL/I preprocessor isn't tied to the language and can be 
>> used as a general-purpose macro processor.
> 
> The IBM assembler macro processor *is* part of the assembler and *is*
> tightly bound to the language.
> 

Sort of.  OS/360 SYSGEN used the assembler as part of its process, but 
it didn't really assemble anything.  The sysprog coded assembler macros 
to specify the options he wanted included in the system, the macros were 
processed by the assembler, which punched a "stage 2" deck of JCL and 
utility control cards.

The PL/I preprocessor is part of the compiler, but I have used it for 
macro processing completely unrelated to PL/I.

Re: Why is Ada considered "too specialized" for scientific use

[glen herrmannsfeldt]

In comp.lang.fortran Peter Flass <Peter_Flass@yahoo.com> wrote:
> Fritz Wuehler wrote:
(snip)
>> The IBM assembler macro processor *is* part of the assembler and *is*
>> tightly bound to the language.
 
> Sort of.  OS/360 SYSGEN used the assembler as part of its process, but 
> it didn't really assemble anything.  The sysprog coded assembler macros 
> to specify the options he wanted included in the system, the macros were 
> processed by the assembler, which punched a "stage 2" deck of JCL and 
> utility control cards.

Yes.  With the assembler PUNCH opcode you can send any string
that you can create using the assembler's string processing
out SYSPUNCH.  (Where object code normally goes.)

Also, in the early microprocessor days it was often used to
assemble code for other processors.  With a macro for each
opcode in the target assembly laanguage, it wasn't hard to do.
The assembler arithmetic operations were used to generate
the little-endian absolute addresses needed.

There was a program to convert the object deck output to the
formats needed, such as motorola hex format (often used to
write EPROMS), and another to make the listing file look like
one would expect.

> The PL/I preprocessor is part of the compiler, but I have used it for 
> macro processing completely unrelated to PL/I.

It is more powerful, but less general than the C preprocessor.
The input has to make some sense in terms of the PL/I syntax,
where the C preprocessor will do substitutions even in what
doesn't look much like C.  

-- glen

Re: Why is Ada considered "too specialized" for scientific use

[Shmuel Metz]

In <huii3u$u9$2@news.eternal-september.org>, on 06/07/2010
   at 06:36 AM, Peter Flass <Peter_Flass@Yahoo.com> said:

>Of course that's effectively two programs - a macro processor and an 
>assembler.

No way, Josￜ! There may be assemblers where the macro processing is a
separate phase, but in the assembler that I use these days it's
integrated, e.g., a macroinstruction can test the length attribute of
a symbol.

>The PL/I preprocessor

Is a separate issue.

-- 
Shmuel (Seymour J.) Metz, SysProg and JOAT  <http://patriot.net/~shmuel>

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Re: Why is Ada considered "too specialized" for scientific use

[Martin Krischik]

Am 07.06.2010, 01:01 Uhr, schrieb Gib Bogle  
<g.bogle@auckland.no.spam.ac.nz>:

> Martin Krischik wrote:
>> Am 06.06.2010, 17:19 Uhr, schrieb J. Clarke <jclarke.usenet@cox.net>:
>>
>>> On 6/6/2010 12:25 AM, Shmuel (Seymour J.) Metz wrote:
>>
>>> What do you believe to be the difference between machine code and  
>>> assembler?
>>  6502 Assembler:
>>      LDA #10
>>  6502 Machine code:
>>      A9 10
>>  Any more silly questions?
>
> Yes.  What relevance does this have for Fortran?

None. I was just answering the question. And loking on the cross post list  
I am wondering what the question did here in the first place.

Martin
-- 
Martin Krischik
mailto://krischik@users.sourceforge.net
https://sourceforge.net/users/krischik

Re: Why is Ada considered "too specialized" for scientific use

[robin]

"Martin Krischik" <krischik@users.sourceforge.net> wrote in message news:op.vdv17504z25lew@macpro-eth1.krischik.com...
| Am 06.06.2010, 17:19 Uhr, schrieb J. Clarke <jclarke.usenet@cox.net>:
|
| > On 6/6/2010 12:25 AM, Shmuel (Seymour J.) Metz wrote:
|
| > What do you believe to be the difference between machine code and
| > assembler?
|
| 6502 Assembler:
|
| LDA #10
|
| 6502 Machine code:
|
| A9 10
|
| Any more silly questions?

That assembler was of a much later period than the one under discussion,
namely, the 1940s-1950s. 

Re: Why is Ada considered "too specialized" for scientific use

[Peter Flass]

robin wrote:
> "Martin Krischik" <krischik@users.sourceforge.net> wrote in message news:op.vdv17504z25lew@macpro-eth1.krischik.com...
> | Am 06.06.2010, 17:19 Uhr, schrieb J. Clarke <jclarke.usenet@cox.net>:
> |
> | > On 6/6/2010 12:25 AM, Shmuel (Seymour J.) Metz wrote:
> |
> | > What do you believe to be the difference between machine code and
> | > assembler?
> |
> | 6502 Assembler:
> |
> | LDA #10
> |
> | 6502 Machine code:
> |
> | A9 10
> |
> | Any more silly questions?
> 
> That assembler was of a much later period than the one under discussion,
> namely, the 1940s-1950s. 
> 
> 

If you want to talk *really* old assemblers, look at SOAP.  The hardware 
had no core, only drum memory, and each H/W instruction contained the 
drum address of the next instruction to be executed.  A big function of 
the assembler was figuring out where to store the instructions on the 
drum so that the next instruction was under the R/W head just as the 
previous finished executing -- based on the instruction timings.  Try 
doing that by hand for a large program!

Re: Why is Ada considered "too specialized" for scientific use

[Yannick Duchêne (Hibou57)]

Le Mon, 07 Jun 2010 12:40:07 +0200, Peter Flass <Peter_Flass@yahoo.com> a  
écrit:
> If you want to talk *really* old assemblers, look at SOAP.  The hardware  
> had no core, only drum memory,
What is a “drum memory” ?


-- 
There is even better than a pragma Assert: a SPARK --# check.
--# check C and WhoKnowWhat and YouKnowWho;
--# assert Ada;
--  i.e. forget about previous premises which leads to conclusion
--  and start with new conclusion as premise.

Re: Why is Ada considered "too specialized" for scientific use

[J. Clarke]

On 6/7/2010 8:35 AM, Yannick Duchêne (Hibou57) wrote:
> Le Mon, 07 Jun 2010 12:40:07 +0200, Peter Flass <Peter_Flass@yahoo.com>
> a écrit:
>> If you want to talk *really* old assemblers, look at SOAP. The
>> hardware had no core, only drum memory,
> What is a “drum memory” ?

Are you serious?

You remember those old Edison phonographs that used a wax cylinder? 
Well imagine that concept only with the cylinder coated with magnetic 
material instead of wax, and with a row (or several rows) of heads along 
its length.  Has most of the properties of a fixed-head disk except the 
unequal track lengths.

Re: Why is Ada considered "too specialized" for scientific use

[Gib Bogle]

J. Clarke wrote:
> On 6/7/2010 8:35 AM, Yannick Duchêne (Hibou57) wrote:
>> Le Mon, 07 Jun 2010 12:40:07 +0200, Peter Flass <Peter_Flass@yahoo.com>
>> a écrit:
>>> If you want to talk *really* old assemblers, look at SOAP. The
>>> hardware had no core, only drum memory,
>> What is a “drum memory” ?
> 
> Are you serious?
> 
> You remember those old Edison phonographs that used a wax cylinder? Well 
> imagine that concept only with the cylinder coated with magnetic 
> material instead of wax, and with a row (or several rows) of heads along 
> its length.  Has most of the properties of a fixed-head disk except the 
> unequal track lengths.
> 
> 

You had drum memory?  You were lucky.  When I was young we had to tie knots in 
pieces of string, by hand.

Re: Why is Ada considered "too specialized" for scientific use

[Peter Flass]

J. Clarke wrote:
> On 6/7/2010 8:35 AM, Yannick Duchêne (Hibou57) wrote:
>> Le Mon, 07 Jun 2010 12:40:07 +0200, Peter Flass <Peter_Flass@yahoo.com>
>> a écrit:
>>> If you want to talk *really* old assemblers, look at SOAP. The
>>> hardware had no core, only drum memory,
>> What is a “drum memory” ?
> 
> Are you serious?
> 
> You remember those old Edison phonographs that used a wax cylinder? Well 
> imagine that concept only with the cylinder coated with magnetic 
> material instead of wax, and with a row (or several rows) of heads along 
> its length.  Has most of the properties of a fixed-head disk except the 
> unequal track lengths.
> 
> 

That's it.  I believe it was an IBM 704, although probably other old 
computers used them also.  Drums were popular as storage on systems, 
even with disks, because, being head per track, they were much faster. 
They were often used as a swap medium.

This is a little far afield for these three NGs.

Re: Why is Ada considered "too specialized" for scientific use

[glen herrmannsfeldt]

In comp.lang.fortran Peter Flass <Peter_Flass@yahoo.com> wrote:
(snip)
 
> That's it.  I believe it was an IBM 704, although probably other old 
> computers used them also.  

Well, Fortran I on the 704 has the READ DRUM and WRITE DRUM statements.
(That should get it back to Fortran, anyway.)

> Drums were popular as storage on systems, 
> even with disks, because, being head per track, they were much faster. 
> They were often used as a swap medium.

The IBM 2301 and 2303 were around for the S/370 days, but the
popular swap device for S/370 was the 2305 fixed head disk.
The 2xxx devices are from the S/360 generation, where 3xxx
numbering was used with S/370.
 
> This is a little far afield for these three NGs.

-- glen

Re: Why is Ada considered "too specialized" for scientific use

[Shmuel Metz]

In <hujqhj$ng9$1@speranza.aioe.org>, on 06/07/2010
   at 10:06 PM, glen herrmannsfeldt <gah@ugcs.caltech.edu> said:

>The IBM 2301 and 2303 were around for the S/370 days, but the popular
>swap device for S/370 was the 2305 fixed head disk.

Popular? Even a model 2[1] was fairly expensive, and it only had 10%
of the capacity of a 3330-1 moving-head disk drive.

[1] The 2305-2 had twice the capacity and half the speed of the
    2305-1.

-- 
Shmuel (Seymour J.) Metz, SysProg and JOAT  <http://patriot.net/~shmuel>

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Re: Why is Ada considered "too specialized" for scientific use

[Shmuel Metz]

In <hujp34$m4p$1@news.eternal-september.org>, on 06/07/2010
   at 05:56 PM, Peter Flass <Peter_Flass@Yahoo.com> said:

>That's it.  I believe it was an IBM 704,

You could attach a drum to a 704, but the main memory was core.

>Drums were popular as storage on systems, 
>even with disks, because, being head per track,

Google for FastRand.

>They were often used as a swap medium.

ITYM paging; moving-head devices were good enough for swap.

-- 
Shmuel (Seymour J.) Metz, SysProg and JOAT  <http://patriot.net/~shmuel>

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Re: Why is Ada considered "too specialized" for scientific use

[robin]

"Peter Flass" <Peter_Flass@Yahoo.com> wrote in message news:hujp34$m4p$1@news.eternal-september.org...

| That's it.  I believe it was an IBM 704, although probably other old
| computers used them also.  Drums were popular as storage on systems,
| even with disks, because, being head per track, they were much faster.
| They were often used as a swap medium.

Some drums were head-per-track.
Those on the Pilot ACE (and ACE too, I think) and DEUCE had moving
heads for their drums. 

Re: Why is Ada considered "too specialized" for scientific use

[Shmuel Metz]

In <huis7i12bi@news7.newsguy.com>, on 06/07/2010
   at 09:29 AM, "J. Clarke" <jclarke.usenet@cox.net> said:

>Has most of the properties of a fixed-head disk

Google for FastRand.

-- 
Shmuel (Seymour J.) Metz, SysProg and JOAT  <http://patriot.net/~shmuel>

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Re: Why is Ada considered "too specialized" for scientific use

[robin]

[-- Warning: decoded text below may be mangled, UTF-8 assumed --]
[-- Attachment #1: Type: text/plain, Size: 529 bytes --]

"Yannick Duch�ne (Hibou57)" <yannick_duchene@yahoo.fr> wrote in message news:op.vdxjxcnqule2fv@garhos...

>What is a "drum memory" ?

It's behaves like a conventional disc in a disc drive.
Only instead of a set of platters bolted together and rotating
on the spindle formed from the bolt,
it's a cylinder rotating around its axis.

In the case of the disc drive, the surfaces of the platters are
coated with film capable of being magnetised.

In the case of the drum, the outside surface is coated with the magnetic film. 

Re: Why is Ada considered "too specialized" for scientific use

[Yannick Duchêne (Hibou57)]

Le Mon, 07 Jun 2010 16:35:39 +0200, robin <robin51@dodo.com.au> a écrit:
> It's behaves like a conventional disc in a disc drive.
> Only instead of a set of platters bolted together and rotating
> on the spindle formed from the bolt,
> it's a cylinder rotating around its axis.
>
> In the case of the disc drive, the surfaces of the platters are
> coated with film capable of being magnetised.
>
> In the case of the drum, the outside surface is coated with the magnetic  
> film.
OK, I see, a kind of Jurassic mass storage device (seems there was funny  
things in these times.. still clever for that time technology,  I confess  
with due respect).


-- 
There is even better than a pragma Assert: a SPARK --# check.
--# check C and WhoKnowWhat and YouKnowWho;
--# assert Ada;
--  i.e. forget about previous premises which leads to conclusion
--  and start with new conclusion as premise.

Re: Why is Ada considered "too specialized" for scientific use

[Martin Krischik]

Am 07.06.2010, 14:35 Uhr, schrieb Yannick Duchêne (Hibou57)  
<yannick_duchene@yahoo.fr>:

> What is a “drum memory” ?

http://lmgtfy.com/?q=drum+memory

Martin

-- 
Martin Krischik
mailto://krischik@users.sourceforge.net
https://sourceforge.net/users/krischik

Re: Why is Ada considered "too specialized" for scientific use

[Dick Hendrickson]

On 6/7/10 7:35 AM, Yannick Duchêne (Hibou57) wrote:
> Le Mon, 07 Jun 2010 12:40:07 +0200, Peter Flass <Peter_Flass@yahoo.com>
> a écrit:
>> If you want to talk *really* old assemblers, look at SOAP. The
>> hardware had no core, only drum memory,
> What is a “drum memory” ?
>
>
I think it was the successor to CRT memories.  ;)

Dick Hendrickson

Re: Why is Ada considered "too specialized" for scientific use

[Yannick Duchêne (Hibou57)]

Le Mon, 07 Jun 2010 17:08:00 +0200, Dick Hendrickson  
<dick.hendrickson@att.net> a écrit:
> I think it was the successor to CRT memories.  ;)
>
> Dick Hendrickson
Waw, more and more incredible ; and it did really exist, I've just checked  
it: random access memory with a cathodic ray tube! (Williams Tube Random  
Access Memory Device in 1946).

Thanks for this memorable thing Dick H.

-- 
There is even better than a pragma Assert: a SPARK --# check.
--# check C and WhoKnowWhat and YouKnowWho;
--# assert Ada;
--  i.e. forget about previous premises which leads to conclusion
--  and start with new conclusion as premise.

Re: Why is Ada considered "too specialized" for scientific use

[(see below)]

On 07/06/2010 16:23, in article op.vdxrppr2ule2fv@garhos, "Yannick Duch�ne
(Hibou57)" <yannick_duchene@yahoo.fr> wrote:

> Le Mon, 07 Jun 2010 17:08:00 +0200, Dick Hendrickson
> <dick.hendrickson@att.net> a �crit:
>> I think it was the successor to CRT memories.  ;)
>> 
>> Dick Hendrickson
> Waw, more and more incredible ; and it did really exist, I've just checked
> it: random access memory with a cathodic ray tube! (Williams Tube Random
> Access Memory Device in 1946).
> 
> Thanks for this memorable thing Dick H.

The problem with Williams Tubes was that they suffered from data leakage.
(Honestly!)

-- 
Bill Findlay
<surname><forename> chez blueyonder.co.uk

Re: Why is Ada considered "too specialized" for scientific use

[Shmuel Metz]

In <C832D01F.14629F%yaldnif.w@blueyonder.co.uk>, on 06/07/2010
   at 04:34 PM, "(see below)" <yaldnif.w@blueyonder.co.uk> said:

>The problem with Williams Tubes was that they suffered from data
>leakage.

And DRAM doesn't? The solution in both cases is simple; periodic
refresh.

-- 
Shmuel (Seymour J.) Metz, SysProg and JOAT  <http://patriot.net/~shmuel>

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right to publicly post or ridicule any abusive E-mail.  Reply to
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Re: Why is Ada considered "too specialized" for scientific use

[Peter Flass]

Dick Hendrickson wrote:
> On 6/7/10 7:35 AM, Yannick Duchêne (Hibou57) wrote:
>> Le Mon, 07 Jun 2010 12:40:07 +0200, Peter Flass <Peter_Flass@yahoo.com>
>> a écrit:
>>> If you want to talk *really* old assemblers, look at SOAP. The
>>> hardware had no core, only drum memory,
>> What is a “drum memory” ?
>>
>>
> I think it was the successor to CRT memories.  ;)
> 

Or mercury delay-lines.

Re: Why is Ada considered "too specialized" for scientific use

[Shmuel Metz]

In <hujp4k$m4p$2@news.eternal-september.org>, on 06/07/2010
   at 05:57 PM, Peter Flass <Peter_Flass@Yahoo.com> said:

>Dick Hendrickson wrote:
>> On 6/7/10 7:35 AM, Yannick Duchï¿œne (Hibou57) wrote:
>>> Le Mon, 07 Jun 2010 12:40:07 +0200, Peter Flass <Peter_Flass@yahoo.com>
>>> a ï¿œcrit:
>>>> If you want to talk *really* old assemblers, look at SOAP. The
>>>> hardware had no core, only drum memory,
>>> What is a  drum memory  ?
>>>
>>>
>> I think it was the successor to CRT memories.  ;)
>> 

>Or mercury delay-lines.

"Tanks for the memories."

-- 
Shmuel (Seymour J.) Metz, SysProg and JOAT  <http://patriot.net/~shmuel>

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Re: Why is Ada considered "too specialized" for scientific use

[Shmuel Metz]

In <874gafFcadU1@mid.individual.net>, on 06/07/2010
   at 10:08 AM, Dick Hendrickson <dick.hendrickson@att.net> said:

>I think it was the successor to CRT memories.  ;)

Wasn't the typical Williams-Tube memory faster than the typical drum
memory.

OTOH, you didn't have to replace the drum as often ;-)

-- 
Shmuel (Seymour J.) Metz, SysProg and JOAT  <http://patriot.net/~shmuel>

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Re: Why is Ada considered "too specialized" for scientific use

[robin]

"Shmuel (Seymour J.) Metz" <spamtrap@library.lspace.org.invalid> wrote in message 
news:4c0e130b$1$fuzhry+tra$mr2ice@news.patriot.net...
| In <874gafFcadU1@mid.individual.net>, on 06/07/2010
|   at 10:08 AM, Dick Hendrickson <dick.hendrickson@att.net> said:
|
| >I think it was the successor to CRT memories.  ;)
|
| Wasn't the typical Williams-Tube memory faster than the typical drum
| memory.

A Williams tube provided storage for a small number of bits.
A drum provided large storage, typically some 500 times as much.

The access time for early Williams tubes was comparable to the worst times
for mercury delay lines.

The access time for drum was some 30 times slower than
mercury delay lines and Williams tubes.

| OTOH, you didn't have to replace the drum as often ;-) 

Re: Why is Ada considered "too specialized" for scientific use

[robin]

[-- Warning: decoded text below may be mangled, UTF-8 assumed --]
[-- Attachment #1: Type: text/plain, Size: 503 bytes --]

"Dick Hendrickson" <dick.hendrickson@att.net> wrote in message news:874gafFcadU1@mid.individual.net...
| On 6/7/10 7:35 AM, Yannick Duch�ne (Hibou57) wrote:
| > What is a "drum memory" ?
|
| I think it was the successor to CRT memories.  ;)

Drum memories were't successor to anything.
They were intended as a cheap but fast mass-storage device.
They existed concurrently with mercury delay line memories,
CRT memories, nickel delay line memories.

They were made from about 1953, if not before. 

Re: Why is Ada considered "too specialized" for scientific use

[Shmuel Metz]

In <4c0e282d$0$56573$c30e37c6@exi-reader.telstra.net>, on 06/08/2010
   at 09:23 PM, "robin" <robin51@dodo.com.au> said:

>Drum memories were't successor to anything.

That part may be true.

>They were intended as a cheap but fast mass-storage device.

ROTF,LMAO. They were expensive and small. They were used as the main
memories in, e.g., UNIVAC 1103, IBM 650.

-- 
Shmuel (Seymour J.) Metz, SysProg and JOAT  <http://patriot.net/~shmuel>

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Re: Why is Ada considered "too specialized" for scientific use

[robin]

"Shmuel (Seymour J.) Metz" <spamtrap@library.lspace.org.invalid> wrote in message 
news:4c0f7204$2$fuzhry+tra$mr2ice@news.patriot.net...
| In <4c0e282d$0$56573$c30e37c6@exi-reader.telstra.net>, on 06/08/2010
|   at 09:23 PM, "robin" <robin51@dodo.com.au> said:
|
| >Drum memories were't successor to anything.
|
| That part may be true.
|
| >They were intended as a cheap but fast mass-storage device.
|
| ROTF,LMAO. They were expensive and small. They were used as the main
| memories in, e.g., UNIVAC 1103, IBM 650.

They were a cheap but fast random access mass-storage device,
providing the equivalent storage of 256 mercury delay lines
at a fraction of the cost and at a fraction of the electronics.

The control for the DEUCE drum required but 12 electronic units,
whereas the associated electronics for 256 delay lines would have
required 256 units, and several rooms to house them,
along with 256 receivers and 256 transmitters. 

Re: Why is Ada considered "too specialized" for scientific use

[robin]

"Shmuel (Seymour J.) Metz" <spamtrap@library.lspace.org.invalid> wrote in message 
news:4c0fa318$1$fuzhry+tra$mr2ice@news.patriot.net...
| In <4c0f9b82$0$56567$c30e37c6@exi-reader.telstra.net>, on 06/09/2010
|   at 11:47 PM, "robin" <robin51@dodo.com.au> said:
|
| >They were a cheap but fast random access mass-storage device,
|
| Not if you compared them to anything used for mass storage.

In the early 1950s, what other random-access mass storage was available?

| >providing the equivalent storage of 256 mercury delay lines
|
| Those were not used for mass storage.

No-one said they were.

That was to provide an idea of their relative capacities.

Re: Why is Ada considered "too specialized" for scientific use

[Non scrivetemi]

> | Not if you compared them to anything used for mass storage.
> 
> In the early 1950s, what other random-access mass storage was available?

CRAM

Re: Why is Ada considered "too specialized" for scientific use

[robin]

"Non scrivetemi" <nonscrivetemi@pboxmix.winstonsmith.info> wrote in message 
news:5babf2a7cae0c1802ae71589dc62dd65@pboxmix.winstonsmith.info...
|> | Not if you compared them to anything used for mass storage.
| >
| > In the early 1950s, what other random-access mass storage was available?
|
| CRAM

That was 1962. 

Re: Why is Ada considered "too specialized" for scientific use

[robin]

"Shmuel (Seymour J.) Metz" <spamtrap@library.lspace.org.invalid> wrote in message 
news:4c10b858$4$fuzhry+tra$mr2ice@news.patriot.net...
| In <4c1029bd$0$56577$c30e37c6@exi-reader.telstra.net>, on 06/10/2010
|   at 09:54 AM, "robin" <robin51@dodo.com.au> said:
|
| >In the early 1950s, what other random-access mass storage was
| >available?
|
| c /other//

So, you don't know, do you!
As you don't know, stop making stupid ripostes. 

Re: Why is Ada considered "too specialized" for scientific use

[Robert AH Prins]

On 2010-06-07 10:40, Peter Flass wrote:
> robin wrote:
>> "Martin Krischik" <krischik@users.sourceforge.net> wrote in message
>> news:op.vdv17504z25lew@macpro-eth1.krischik.com...
>> | Am 06.06.2010, 17:19 Uhr, schrieb J. Clarke <jclarke.usenet@cox.net>:
>> |
>> | > On 6/6/2010 12:25 AM, Shmuel (Seymour J.) Metz wrote:
>> |
>> | > What do you believe to be the difference between machine code and
>> | > assembler?
>> |
>> | 6502 Assembler:
>> |
>> | LDA #10
>> |
>> | 6502 Machine code:
>> |
>> | A9 10
>> |
>> | Any more silly questions?
>>
>> That assembler was of a much later period than the one under discussion,
>> namely, the 1940s-1950s.
>>
>
> If you want to talk *really* old assemblers, look at SOAP. The hardware
> had no core, only drum memory, and each H/W instruction contained the
> drum address of the next instruction to be executed. A big function of
> the assembler was figuring out where to store the instructions on the
> drum so that the next instruction was under the R/W head just as the
> previous finished executing -- based on the instruction timings. Try
> doing that by hand for a large program!

http://www.csd.uwo.ca/staff/magi/personal/humour/Computer_Audience/Real%20Programmers%20Write%20Fortran.html

FWIW, this thread is getting far too long and has f*ck all to do with 
Fortran or PL/I and everything with ego's and one ego in particular...

Robert
-- 
Robert
-- 
Robert AH Prins
spamtrap(a)prino(d)org

Re: Why is Ada considered "too specialized" for scientific use

[Arthur Evans Jr]

In article <huiia5$2k1$1@news.eternal-september.org>,
 Peter Flass <Peter_Flass@Yahoo.com> wrote:

> If you want to talk *really* old assemblers, look at SOAP.  The hardware 
> had no core, only drum memory, and each H/W instruction contained the 
> drum address of the next instruction to be executed.  A big function of 
> the assembler was figuring out where to store the instructions on the 
> drum so that the next instruction was under the R/W head just as the 
> previous finished executing -- based on the instruction timings.  Try 
> doing that by hand for a large program!

SOAP was an assembler for the IBM 650, a drum machine that had 200 (NOT 
2048) words on a rotating drum in 40 tracks of 50 words each. It was a 
one-plus-one address machine, each instruction including the address of 
its successor.

As Mt Flass has said, SOAP (Symbolic Optimal Assembler Program) did its 
best to place each instruction so that it was coming under the read 
heads when the previous instruction finished executing.

But, it did that when first the instruction was encountered in the 
input. If the instruction was the successor of another instruction, it 
wasn't likely to be optimized for this one. Thus it was in fact 
sometimes (rarely) worth doing that optimization by hand for frequently 
used pieces of code.

The 650 initially had no floating point instructions, so the run time 
support library for IT included code to simulate floating point 
arithmetic. Since this package had heavy use, my colleague Joe Smith 
optimized it by hand, resulting in a noticeable performance increase.

Yes, I know, this discussion really belongs on alt.folklore.computers, 
but I couldn't resist.

BTW -- Don Knuth, who like me cut his programming teeth on the 650, once 
designed an integer-programming application to truly optimize 
instruction placement. I don't know if he ever actually programmed it, 
as he was sure it would take vastly more time to execute than it could 
ever save. I may misremember some of the details.

Art Evans
Old Codger

Re: Why is Ada considered "too specialized" for scientific use

[Gib Bogle]

Arthur Evans Jr wrote:

> 
> BTW -- Don Knuth, who like me cut his programming teeth on the 650, once 
> designed an integer-programming application to truly optimize 
> instruction placement. I don't know if he ever actually programmed it, 
> as he was sure it would take vastly more time to execute than it could 
> ever save. I may misremember some of the details.

Classic!

Re: Why is Ada considered "too specialized" for scientific use

[Shmuel Metz]

In <nospam-0512E7.10224407062010@earthlink.us.supernews.com>, on
06/07/2010
   at 10:22 AM, Arthur Evans  Jr <nospam@someISP.net> said:

>SOAP was an assembler for the IBM 650, a drum machine that had 200

ITYM 2,000 or 4,000, depending on model.

-- 
Shmuel (Seymour J.) Metz, SysProg and JOAT  <http://patriot.net/~shmuel>

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Re: Why is Ada considered "too specialized" for scientific use

[robin]

"Peter Flass" <Peter_Flass@Yahoo.com> wrote in message news:huiia5$2k1$1@news.eternal-september.org...

| If you want to talk *really* old assemblers, look at SOAP.  The hardware
| had no core, only drum memory, and each H/W instruction contained the
| drum address of the next instruction to be executed.  A big function of
| the assembler was figuring out where to store the instructions on the
| drum so that the next instruction was under the R/W head just as the
| previous finished executing -- based on the instruction timings.  Try
| doing that by hand for a large program!

That was done by hand for many early machines that relied on
mercury delay line (or nickel) memories.
Some of those progrems were gigantic.
Nevertheless, done in stages (building blocks)
it was managable. 

Re: Why is Ada considered "too specialized" for scientific use

[Shmuel Metz]

In <4c0d0278$0$56572$c30e37c6@exi-reader.telstra.net>, on 06/08/2010
   at 12:30 AM, "robin" <robin51@dodo.com.au> said:

>That was done by hand for many early machines that relied on mercury
>delay line (or nickel) memories.

I don't know about the UK, but in the USA pretty much everybody
abandoned the Mercury delay line after the UNIVAC I. It's true that
the PB-250 used an acoustic delay line, but that used glass rather
than Mercury.

-- 
Shmuel (Seymour J.) Metz, SysProg and JOAT  <http://patriot.net/~shmuel>

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Re: Why is Ada considered "too specialized" for scientific use

[robin]

"Shmuel (Seymour J.) Metz" <spamtrap@library.lspace.org.invalid> wrote in message 
news:4c0e1800$9$fuzhry+tra$mr2ice@news.patriot.net...
| In <4c0d0278$0$56572$c30e37c6@exi-reader.telstra.net>, on 06/08/2010
|   at 12:30 AM, "robin" <robin51@dodo.com.au> said:
|
| >That was done by hand for many early machines that relied on mercury
| >delay line (or nickel) memories.
|
| I don't know about the UK, but in the USA pretty much everybody
| abandoned the Mercury delay line after the UNIVAC I.

John Kennedy said that :-
"Delay-lines were still used until the early 1970s as the memory of the
"IBM 2260, which was the precursor to the 3270. 

Re: Why is Ada considered "too specialized" for scientific use

[Shmuel Metz]

In <4c0f9e06$0$56575$c30e37c6@exi-reader.telstra.net>, on 06/09/2010
   at 11:58 PM, "robin" <robin51@dodo.com.au> said:

>John Kennedy said that :-
>"Delay-lines were still used until the early 1970s as the memory of
>the "IBM 2260, which was the precursor to the 3270. 

He didn't say that they used Mercury tanks for the delay lines, and
neither the PB-250 nor the IBM 2260[1] did.

[1] Actually, the memory was on control unit to which the 2260
    displays were attached, as I recall.

-- 
Shmuel (Seymour J.) Metz, SysProg and JOAT  <http://patriot.net/~shmuel>

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Re: Why is Ada considered "too specialized" for scientific use

[Richard Harter]

On Mon, 07 Jun 2010 06:40:07 -0400, Peter Flass
<Peter_Flass@Yahoo.com> wrote:

>robin wrote:
>> "Martin Krischik" <krischik@users.sourceforge.net> wrote in message news:op.vdv17504z25lew@macpro-eth1.krischik.com...
>> | Am 06.06.2010, 17:19 Uhr, schrieb J. Clarke <jclarke.usenet@cox.net>:
>> |
>> | > On 6/6/2010 12:25 AM, Shmuel (Seymour J.) Metz wrote:
>> |
>> | > What do you believe to be the difference between machine code and
>> | > assembler?
>> |
>> | 6502 Assembler:
>> |
>> | LDA #10
>> |
>> | 6502 Machine code:
>> |
>> | A9 10
>> |
>> | Any more silly questions?
>> 
>> That assembler was of a much later period than the one under discussion,
>> namely, the 1940s-1950s. 
>> 
>> 
>
>If you want to talk *really* old assemblers, look at SOAP.  The hardware 
>had no core, only drum memory, and each H/W instruction contained the 
>drum address of the next instruction to be executed.  A big function of 
>the assembler was figuring out where to store the instructions on the 
>drum so that the next instruction was under the R/W head just as the 
>previous finished executing -- based on the instruction timings.  Try 
>doing that by hand for a large program!

It must be time to recall the story of Mel.  I've got a copy on
my website at http://home.tiac.net/~cri/2001/mel.html though I am
sure that there must be other copies on the web.



Richard Harter, cri@tiac.net
http://home.tiac.net/~cri, http://www.varinoma.com
Reality is real; words are real too.
However words are not reality.

Re: Why is Ada considered "too specialized" for scientific use

[Wilson]

On Mon, 07 Jun 2010 11:24:00 -0400, Richard Harter <cri@tiac.net> wrote:

> On Mon, 07 Jun 2010 06:40:07 -0400, Peter Flass
> <Peter_Flass@Yahoo.com> wrote:
>
>> robin wrote:
>>> "Martin Krischik" <krischik@users.sourceforge.net> wrote in message  
>>> news:op.vdv17504z25lew@macpro-eth1.krischik.com...
>>> | Am 06.06.2010, 17:19 Uhr, schrieb J. Clarke <jclarke.usenet@cox.net>:
>>> |
>>> | > On 6/6/2010 12:25 AM, Shmuel (Seymour J.) Metz wrote:
>>> |
>>> | > What do you believe to be the difference between machine code and
>>> | > assembler?
>>> |
>>> | 6502 Assembler:
>>> |
>>> | LDA #10
>>> |
>>> | 6502 Machine code:
>>> |
>>> | A9 10
>>> |
>>> | Any more silly questions?
>>>
>>> That assembler was of a much later period than the one under  
>>> discussion,
>>> namely, the 1940s-1950s.
>>>
>>>
>>
>> If you want to talk *really* old assemblers, look at SOAP.  The hardware
>> had no core, only drum memory, and each H/W instruction contained the
>> drum address of the next instruction to be executed.  A big function of
>> the assembler was figuring out where to store the instructions on the
>> drum so that the next instruction was under the R/W head just as the
>> previous finished executing -- based on the instruction timings.  Try
>> doing that by hand for a large program!
>
> It must be time to recall the story of Mel.  I've got a copy on
> my website at http://home.tiac.net/~cri/2001/mel.html though I am
> sure that there must be other copies on the web.
>
>
>
> Richard Harter, cri@tiac.net
> http://home.tiac.net/~cri, http://www.varinoma.com
> Reality is real; words are real too.
> However words are not reality.


Loved your story of Mel.  I worked with a couple of people like that.  We  
called them "bit diddlers" because "real programmers" always worked with  
bits.  None of fancy, dancy oct or hex stuff.

Unfortunantly, like you I had to upgrade one or two of their programs.   
Even worse, at one time I belonged to their fraternity.  It was mentally  
chalanging either way, and a great game to see how good you were.   In  
other words, fun while it lasted.  The arrival of Fortran and Cobol put an  
end to the era of the bit diddler, although they made a small comeback  
with the advent of the first microporcessors.  (Now that I think about it,  
I'll bet that somewhere there is a bit diddler trying to shoehorn a big  
program into the small memmory of some kind of control computer.)
-- 
Using Opera's revolutionary e-mail client: http://www.opera.com/mail/

--- news://freenews.netfront.net/ - complaints: news@netfront.net ---

Re: Why is Ada considered "too specialized" for scientific use

[Shmuel Metz]

In <huiia5$2k1$1@news.eternal-september.org>, on 06/07/2010
   at 06:40 AM, Peter Flass <Peter_Flass@Yahoo.com> said:

>If you want to talk *really* old assemblers, look at SOAP.  The
>hardware  had no core,

Ours did. But only 60 words.

>and each H/W instruction contained the 
>drum address of the next instruction to be executed.

The next instruction did not have to be on the drum. It could be,
e.g., in core, in the Upper Accumulator.

-- 
Shmuel (Seymour J.) Metz, SysProg and JOAT  <http://patriot.net/~shmuel>

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Re: Why is Ada considered "too specialized" for scientific use

[Shmuel Metz]

In <hugevn02qfb@news5.newsguy.com>, on 06/06/2010
   at 11:19 AM, "J. Clarke" <jclarke.usenet@cox.net> said:

>What do you believe to be the difference between machine code and
>assembler?

What do you believe to be the similarity?

In assembler code everything is symbolic and you don't even have a 1-1
relationship between lines of source code and words of object code.
Coding in assembler is far less labor intensive than coding in machine
language.

-- 
Shmuel (Seymour J.) Metz, SysProg and JOAT  <http://patriot.net/~shmuel>

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right to publicly post or ridicule any abusive E-mail.  Reply to
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Re: Why is Ada considered "too specialized" for scientific use

[robin]

"robin" <robin51@dodo.com.au> wrote in message news:4bba8bf1$0$56418$c30e37c6@exi-reader.telstra.net...
| "none" <none@none.net> wrote in message news:pan.2010.04.05.20.51.46.20000@none.net...
|| On Mon, 05 Apr 2010 13:19:07 +0200, Georg Bauhaus wrote:
||
|| Dismissing Algol as ephemeral ignores its influence and continuing usage
|| as a base of pseudo-codes. Important numerical libraries were first
|| implemented in ALgol,
|
| No, they were first implemented in machine code,
| and later rewritten in Algol and FORTRAN.
| The numerical procedures of the General Interpretive Programme
| were written in machine code, from 1955.
|
|| and later translated to Fortran when Algol's
|| momentum faltered.

For the record, algorithms in the following areas were
first written in machine code, from the mid-1940s,
and run from the early 1950s.

Differential equations
solving linear equations
latent roots
matrix multiplication
calculate determinants
matrix transpose
matrix inversion
linear porogramming
multple linear regression
statistical tabulations.
input and output
floating-point arithmetic (software)

Most were part of the General Interpretive Programme,
developed at National Physical Laboratory by 1955.

In particular, 129 simultaneous equations solved on Pilot ACE in 1952.
Simultaneous equations and second-order differential equations were solved,
and are documented in proceedings of 1953 NPL symposium.
Aircraft flutter design calculations were done in 1952 with the introduction of jet
aeroplanes -- made compulsory in 1954 following investigations of
crashes of the Comet (the investigation itself required extensive computer calculations).
Crystallography calculations from 1954.

Just to mention a few ...

Re: Why is Ada considered "too specialized" for scientific use

[robin]

"none" <none@none.net> wrote in message news:pan.2010.04.05.20.51.46.20000@none.net...
| On Mon, 05 Apr 2010 13:19:07 +0200, Georg Bauhaus wrote:

| Dismissing Algol as ephemeral ignores its influence and continuing usage
| as a base of pseudo-codes. Important numerical libraries were first
| implemented in ALgol, and later translated to Fortran when Algol's
| momentum faltered.

Here's another example that I came across today:

Don Shell published his algorithm in machine code.
(A High-Speed Sorting Procedure, CACM, July 1959, p. 30-32.) 

Re: Why is Ada considered "too specialized" for scientific use

[Colin Paul Gloster]

On Mon, 5 Apr 2010, Georg Bauhaus posted:

|---------------------------------------------------------------------|
|"[..]                                                                |
|                                                                     |
|As Dmitry Kazakov has recently said, when Ada run-time systems       |
|starts addressing the properties of multicore hardware               |
|there is hope that it could really shine: Not just because concurrent|
|sequential processes are so simple to express using Ada tasks        |
|---and you'd be using only language, not a mix of libraries,         |
|preprocessors, specialized compilers, programming conventions,       |
|etc.  But also in case the fine grained complexity of OpenMP 3.0     |
|can be bridled by simple language and a good run-time system.        |
|At little cost."                                                     |
|---------------------------------------------------------------------|

I met someone today who described himself as "an ordinary FORTRAN
programmer" who advocated C for the practical reason that libraries
are designed for C. He claimed that small tasks are good for multicore
and large tasks are good for GPUs.

Re: Why is Ada considered "too specialized" for scientific use

[robin]

"Colin Paul Gloster" <Colin_Paul_Gloster@ACM.org> wrote in message 
news:alpine.LNX.2.00.1004132014460.3668@Bluewhite64.example.net...

| I met someone today who described himself as "an ordinary FORTRAN
| programmer" who advocated C for the practical reason that libraries
| are designed for C. He claimed that small tasks are good for multicore
| and large tasks are good for GPUs.

I think you will fnd that libraries are also designed for Fortran. 

Re: Why is Ada considered "too specialized" for scientific use

[Colin Paul Gloster]

On Fri, 14 May 2010, Robin sent:

|------------------------------------------------------------------------|
|""Colin Paul Gloster" <Colin_Paul_Gloster@ACM.org> wrote in message     |
|news:alpine.LNX.2.00.1004132014460.3668@Bluewhite64.example.net...      |
|                                                                        |
|| I met someone today who described himself as "an ordinary FORTRAN     |
|| programmer" who advocated C for the practical reason that libraries   |
|| are designed for C. He claimed that small tasks are good for multicore|
|| and large tasks are good for GPUs.                                    |
|                                                                        |
|I think you will fnd that libraries are also designed for Fortran."     |
|------------------------------------------------------------------------|

They certainly are. He uses code based on LAPACK. If you are aware of
Fortran bindings to GPUs which you would care to inform me of, then I
could mention to him. Maybe he already knows about them, maybe not,
but I have already informed you of the reason he gave for advocating
C.

Re: Why is Ada considered "too specialized" for scientific use

[Dan Nagle]

Hello,

On 2010-05-17 06:26:35 -0400, Colin Paul Gloster 
<Colin_Paul_Gloster@ACM.org> said:

> They certainly are. He uses code based on LAPACK. If you are aware of
> Fortran bindings to GPUs which you would care to inform me of, then I
> could mention to him. Maybe he already knows about them, maybe not,
> but I have already informed you of the reason he gave for advocating
> C.

There is a standard way of calling C functions from Fortran.
It is considered an important feature of Fortran 2003,
and is widely implemented.  Therefore, the I-need-a-C-library
reason for not using Fortran is not very strong (nor is that
a very strong reason for not using Ada).

Of course, YMMV.

People make emotional decisions, and then backfill
with rational (sounding) reasons.

-- 
Cheers!

Dan Nagle

Re: Why is Ada considered "too specialized" for scientific use

[Charmed Snark]

Nasser M. Abbasi expounded in news:hp95j8$i29$1@speranza.aioe.org:

> I was browsing the net for scientific software written in Ada, and
> came across this strange statement:
> 
> http://farside.ph.utexas.edu/teaching/329/lectures/node7.html
> 
> "Scientific programming languages
> What is the best high-level language to use for scientific
> programming? 

Just asking "what is best" in any selection process
is going to be contentious except for the simplest
of things. Somewhat like asking "what is the best
laptop?" Too many inputs to consider.

> This, unfortunately, is a highly contentious question.
> Over the years, literally hundreds of high-level languages have been
> developed. However, few have stood the test of time. Many languages
> (e.g., Algol, Pascal, Haskell) can be dismissed as ephemeral computer
> science fads. Others (e.g., Cobol, Lisp, Ada) are too specialized to
> adapt for scientific use. 
..
> The remaining options are FORTRAN 77 and C. I have chosen to use C "
> 
> I find this strange, because I think Ada can be the best programming 
> language for numerical work.  So, I do not know why the author above
> thinks Ada is "too specialized to adapt for scientific use".  

Surely he expanded on this? How is it too specialized (in his
opinion)?

> Is there
> something in Ada which makes it hard to use for  scientific 
> programming? 

I recently tried to introduce a co-worker to the fact that
Ada is free and easy to install (cygwin gcc-ada) yada yada.

He started reading a couple of free online (PDF) books and
said his eyes glazed over and that he has no further interest. 
I suppose things might be different if there was a job market
for that skill here (Toronto). So that factor seems to be one 
important reason for some folks.

Library support would be another factor, I would think. People
don't want to become experts in interfacing to C (for example).
But as I do more and more of this, I am finding this to 
be less of an issue. Maybe a good "The Art of Binding [GNAT] 
Ada" document would help people with this. 

I do feel that Ada does require you to "engineer" your 
project more, which is a good thing. But this is something
that some folks seem to dislike. It probably impacts the
inexperienced programmers the most. This is the very
crowd that needs to be won over.

Otherwise, it sounds as if the author has too quickly
dismissed the language, without much familiarity in it.

> The main problem I see with Ada for scientific use is that it does not
> have as nearly as many packages and functions ready to use output of
> the box for this, other than that, the language itself I think is
> better than Fortran and C for scientific work.
> --Nasser 

One huge improvement I see in Ada-2005, is the built-in
inclusion of Ada.Containers. Having them "included" saves
me from having to instruct downloaders of where and which
version of the Booch components (or was it Charles?) etc. 
Having them included means that my project should always 
"work" the same, (in theory at least) regardless of the 
version of the compiler used.

I am making big use of these containers in the rewrite of
my basic interpreter project. I have got far enough along
now to believe that this is a very practical language 
change. I love the higher level of abstraction without
having to forego "repesentation" when it is required.

My only worry remains on compiler portability to HPUX, 
Solaris and AIX. But at this point, I am going on faith
that this will not be a huge open source problem 
going forward. It is encouraging to see the results of 
gcc-ada making it more universally available, and 
hopefully increasingly well tested.

I feel that the benefits of an Ada rewrite now seems 
to outweigh the risk of compiler availability.

One beauty of open source is that I don't have to 
justify the rewrite.  But I could easily do that, 
as the design is much improved now (I also expect
a big performance improvement later). Rewrites allow 
the lessons learned to be applied and Ada is also a
big factor.

It's funny how I got started on this rewrite- it
was the farthest thing from my mind in January. I was
starting to think about threads and matrix operations 
that might benefit etc. The Ada tasking model came
into the thought process at some point. So now I'm 
looking forward to designing that into the 
interpreter when it gets further along.

Just my own nearly at par $0.02 Cdn.

Warren

Re: Why is Ada considered "too specialized" for scientific use

[Nasser M. Abbasi]

"Charmed Snark" <snark@cogeco.ca> wrote in message 
news:Xns9D5189EB419BSnarkCharmedImSure@188.40.43.213...

>
> I am making big use of these containers in the rewrite of
> my basic interpreter project. >

I looked at the Ada 2005 LRM, Containers.Vectors for example, and And I have 
small question

http://www.adaic.org/standards/05rm/html/RM-A-18-2.html

Given this below

function Element (Container : Vector;
                  Index     : Index_Type)
   return Element_Type;


Then to get the element at index 5, one needs to write something like 
Element(V,5).

Is there a way to redefine this so one need to only write V(5) ? because If 
I have large equations, it is more clear to write V(i) than Element(V,i) 
everywhere? Did you find this "longer" syntax an issue for you?

I have not used Containers before. But the list of functions looks 
impressive.

ps. is your interpreter project somewhere on the net to look at?

thanks,
--Nasser

Re: Why is Ada considered "too specialized" for scientific use

[Warren]

Nasser M. Abbasi expounded in news:hpddc6$csh$1@speranza.aioe.org:

>> I am making big use of these containers in the rewrite of
>> my basic interpreter project. >
> 
> I looked at the Ada 2005 LRM, Containers.Vectors for example, and And
> I have small question
> 
> http://www.adaic.org/standards/05rm/html/RM-A-18-2.html
> 
> Given this below
> 
> function Element (Container : Vector;
>                   Index     : Index_Type)
>    return Element_Type;
> 
> 
> Then to get the element at index 5, one needs to write something like 
> Element(V,5).
> 
> Is there a way to redefine this so one need to only write V(5) ?

You could use V.Element(5), but that doesn't really
shorten the notation.

You could declare an internal function for that purpose, though
there are probably better solutions:

procedure My_Proc(args...) is

   package P is new Ada.Containers.Vector(...);
   V : P.Vector;

   Function XV(X : Index_Type) returns Element_Type is
   begin
      return V.Element(X);
   end;
begin
   ... := XV(5);

Note however (as I found out, snickers), you can't use the
V.Element() notation when the input value is a cursor. That
kept tripping me up until I clued in-- the cursor specifies
both the container and position internally. So you must use
Element(Csr) form of the call instead, for cursor values.

> because If I have large equations, it is more clear to write V(i) than
> Element(V,i) everywhere? Did you find this "longer" syntax an issue
> for you? 

Not really, because when you deal with several containers (Maps mostly
in my case), I tend to spell out the full package heirarchy anyway 
for clarity and to avoid hiding caused by "use".

One thing I did do however, was create a SimpMap package that
took care of all of the compare function definitions for me.
I got real tired of redeclaring equality functions for every
new integer/modular type involved.

> I have not used Containers before. But the list of functions looks 
> impressive.
> 
> ps. is your interpreter project somewhere on the net to look at?
> 
> thanks,
> --Nasser

My Ada rewrite is still in the early stages, so it is not up on
SourceForge yet. If you want to experiment with the C version,
or look at the documentation, you can visit:

https://sourceforge.net/projects/bdbbasic

or for language and other documentation:

https://sourceforge.net/apps/mediawiki/bdbbasic/index.php?title=Main_Page

But if you email me directly, I can also send you the tar-balled 
Ada version of the project. You'll see a lot of container examples 
in it, which might be useful.

Warren

Re: Why is Ada considered "too specialized" for scientific use

[Alex Mentis]

On Apr 5, 4:28 pm, Warren <ve3...@gmail.com> wrote:
> Nasser M. Abbasi expounded innews:hpddc6$csh$1@speranza.aioe.org:

<snip>
>
> > Given this below
>
> > function Element (Container : Vector;
> >                   Index     : Index_Type)
> >    return Element_Type;
>
> > Then to get the element at index 5, one needs to write something like
> > Element(V,5).
>
> > Is there a way to redefine this so one need to only write V(5) ?
>
> You could use V.Element(5), but that doesn't really
> shorten the notation.
>
> You could declare an internal function for that purpose, though
> there are probably better solutions:
>
> procedure My_Proc(args...) is
>
>    package P is new Ada.Containers.Vector(...);
>    V : P.Vector;
>
>    Function XV(X : Index_Type) returns Element_Type is
>    begin
>       return V.Element(X);
>    end;
> begin
>    ... := XV(5);
>
<snip>

I guess you could also use a renames clause:

   package Vec is new Vectors (Index_Type   => Positive,
                               Element_Type => Integer);
   use Vec;

   function X_At (Container : Vector;
                  Index     : Positive) return Integer renames
Vec.Element;

but you lose the object.method notation:

   Put ( X_At (V, 5));

Re: Why is Ada considered "too specialized" for scientific use

[Robert A Duff]

"Nasser M. Abbasi" <nma@12000.org> writes:

> Then to get the element at index 5, one needs to write something like 
> Element(V,5).
>
> Is there a way to redefine this so one need to only write V(5) ?

Not yet.

There is a proposal for this for Ada 2012.
And some other useful syntactic sugar.

- Bob

Re: Why is Ada considered "too specialized" for scientific use

[Maciej Sobczak]

On 6 Kwi, 02:38, Robert A Duff <bobd...@shell01.TheWorld.com> wrote:

> > Is there a way to redefine this so one need to only write V(5) ?
>
> Not yet.
>
> There is a proposal for this for Ada 2012.

Interesting. Is this proposal publicly available?

The ability to overload the function call and indexing operators in C+
+ is one of the most important language features and its presence in
Ada would be a very welcome addition.
It is only a pity that there would be no way to overload a function
call operator for the parameterless case. ;-)

--
Maciej Sobczak * http://www.inspirel.com

YAMI4 - Messaging Solution for Distributed Systems
http://www.inspirel.com/yami4

Re: Why is Ada considered "too specialized" for scientific use

[Georg Bauhaus]

On 4/6/10 10:07 AM, Maciej Sobczak wrote:
> On 6 Kwi, 02:38, Robert A Duff<bobd...@shell01.TheWorld.com>  wrote:
>
>>> Is there a way to redefine this so one need to only write V(5) ?
>>
>> Not yet.
>>
>> There is a proposal for this for Ada 2012.
>
> Interesting. Is this proposal publicly available?

I guess it is this one:

http://www.ada-auth.org/cgi-bin/cvsweb.cgi/ai05s/ai05-0139-2.txt

Re: Why is Ada considered "too specialized" for scientific use

[Nasser M. Abbasi]

"Georg Bauhaus" <rm-host.bauhaus@maps.futureapps.de> wrote in message 
news:4bbbadbe$0$6980
>
> I guess it is this one:
>
> http://www.ada-auth.org/cgi-bin/cvsweb.cgi/ai05s/ai05-0139-2.txt
>
>

Thanks for the link. Yes, I see this:

"Essentially we are allowing a container to be "indexed" in the same way as 
an array is indexed, with the key (or potentially various different key 
types) being arbitrary. "

http://www.ada-auth.org/cgi-bin/cvsweb.cgi/ai05s/ai05-0139-2.txt?rev=1.5

This sounds good. Any guess when will gnat have this? 2012, 2013, 2014?

--Nasser 

Re: Why is Ada considered "too specialized" for scientific use

[Randy Brukardt]

"Nasser M. Abbasi" <nma@12000.org> wrote in message 
news:hpgs1t$eid$1@speranza.aioe.org...
...
> Thanks for the link. Yes, I see this:
>
> "Essentially we are allowing a container to be "indexed" in the same way 
> as an array is indexed, with the key (or potentially various different key 
> types) being arbitrary. "
>
> http://www.ada-auth.org/cgi-bin/cvsweb.cgi/ai05s/ai05-0139-2.txt?rev=1.5
>
> This sounds good. Any guess when will gnat have this? 2012, 2013, 2014?

Surely not until there is a firm proposal (all that exists now is an outline 
with no details). Beyond that, I doubt AdaCore will be announcing firm dates 
until its actually available. (They already have some 2012 stuff 
implemented, so it might not be a long wait.)

                               Randy.

Re: Why is Ada considered "too specialized" for scientific use

[Maciej Sobczak]

On 6 Kwi, 10:07, Maciej Sobczak <see.my.homep...@gmail.com> wrote:

> It is only a pity that there would be no way to overload a function
> call operator for the parameterless case. ;-)

Heck, when I think more about this it seems that even this would be
possible by analyzing the context of the given expression. That would
work in a similar way as overloading on return types.
For example, assuming that My_Magic_Type has an overloaded procedure
call operator and My_Other_Magic_Type has an overloaded function call
operator:

declare
   X : My_Magic_Type;
   Y : My_Other_Magic_Type;
begin
   X;          -- parameterless procedure call on X
   A := Y;     -- parameterless function call on Y
   X (1, 2);   -- procedure call on X with two params
   B := Y (3); -- function call on Y with one param
end;

But I'm not really sure if that would be actually useful in the
context of other Ada features. Especially - the only place where it
would make sense is with generics, but then their specification syntax
would blow up even more.
You cannot have everything, I guess...

--
Maciej Sobczak * http://www.inspirel.com

YAMI4 - Messaging Solution for Distributed Systems
http://www.inspirel.com/yami4

Re: Why is Ada considered "too specialized" for scientific use

[Dmitry A. Kazakov]

On Wed, 7 Apr 2010 00:28:22 -0700 (PDT), Maciej Sobczak wrote:

> On 6 Kwi, 10:07, Maciej Sobczak <see.my.homep...@gmail.com> wrote:
> 
>> It is only a pity that there would be no way to overload a function
>> call operator for the parameterless case. ;-)
> 
> Heck, when I think more about this it seems that even this would be
> possible by analyzing the context of the given expression. That would
> work in a similar way as overloading on return types.
> For example, assuming that My_Magic_Type has an overloaded procedure
> call operator and My_Other_Magic_Type has an overloaded function call
> operator:
> 
> declare
>    X : My_Magic_Type;
>    Y : My_Other_Magic_Type;
> begin
>    X;          -- parameterless procedure call on X

A reader would expect this procedure idempotent. Consider a program:

   X; X; X; -- What does this do?

>    A := Y;     -- parameterless function call on Y

I would prefer the ":=" (A, Y); interpretation, here.

>    X (1, 2);   -- procedure call on X with two params

I played with the idea of adding procedural operators. E.g.

   X + 1;

meaning a call to

   procedure "+" (X : in out Foo; Increment : Integer);

>    B := Y (3); -- function call on Y with one param

Better it be ":="(B, "index" (Y, 3));

> end;
> 
> But I'm not really sure if that would be actually useful in the
> context of other Ada features.

The things you could do with your proposal could probably be achieved in
other ways. For example, I considered a "touch" primitive operation, which
similarly to Adjust, to be called each time you access a volatile object in
order to get its value. This could be useful for tracing, interlocking,
garbage collection, persistency layer purposes, etc.

-- 
Regards,
Dmitry A. Kazakov
http://www.dmitry-kazakov.de

Re: Why is Ada considered "too specialized" for scientific use

[Maciej Sobczak]

On 7 Kwi, 10:24, "Dmitry A. Kazakov" <mail...@dmitry-kazakov.de>
wrote:

> A reader would expect this procedure idempotent. Consider a program:
>
>    X; X; X; -- What does this do?

This is the same as today with regular parameterless procedures:

procedure X (Spacing : in Positive_Count := 1)
   renames Ada.Text_IO.New_Line;

Now, what the reader would expect from your example?

> >    A := Y;     -- parameterless function call on Y
>
> I would prefer the ":=" (A, Y); interpretation, here.

As I've pointed out, that would be resolved in the same way as
overloading by return type. The ":=" (A, Y) interpretation might not
match, whereas the overloaded function call on My_Other_Magic_Type
might return the type that is appropriate for assignment to A.

It's a regular overload resolution stuff.

> >    B := Y (3); -- function call on Y with one param
>
> Better it be ":="(B, "index" (Y, 3));

Except that the notion of "index" might not be appropriate. Function
is a more general term (indexing is a kind of function, but not the
other way round).

> The things you could do with your proposal could probably be achieved in
> other ways. For example, I considered a "touch" primitive operation, which
> similarly to Adjust, to be called each time you access a volatile object in
> order to get its value. This could be useful for tracing, interlocking,
> garbage collection, persistency layer purposes, etc.

Except that with the overloaded function call operator, you would not
need "touch", as the function body would be already a right place to
put all such tracing.

--
Maciej Sobczak * http://www.inspirel.com

YAMI4 - Messaging Solution for Distributed Systems
http://www.inspirel.com/yami4

Re: Why is Ada considered "too specialized" for scientific use

[Dmitry A. Kazakov]

On Wed, 7 Apr 2010 04:59:59 -0700 (PDT), Maciej Sobczak wrote:

> On 7 Kwi, 10:24, "Dmitry A. Kazakov" <mail...@dmitry-kazakov.de>
> wrote:
> 
>> A reader would expect this procedure idempotent. Consider a program:
>>
>> � �X; X; X; -- What does this do?
> 
> This is the same as today with regular parameterless procedures:
> 
> procedure X (Spacing : in Positive_Count := 1)
>    renames Ada.Text_IO.New_Line;
>
> Now, what the reader would expect from your example?

The reader knows that New_Line is a shortcut for

   New_Line (Standard_Input);

It is a bad style to hide the effects of a procedure. New_Line is rare
exception form this rule.

>>> � �A := Y; � � -- parameterless function call on Y
>>
>> I would prefer the ":=" (A, Y); interpretation, here.
> 
> As I've pointed out, that would be resolved in the same way as
> overloading by return type.

It must be a type different from My_Other_Magic_Type then. But the reader
sees:

    Y : My_Other_Magic_Type;

so what is the type of Y? If it effectively is not the type declared, then
this does not look like a good idea.

>>> � �B := Y (3); -- function call on Y with one param
>>
>> Better it be ":="(B, "index" (Y, 3));
> 
> Except that the notion of "index" might not be appropriate. Function
> is a more general term (indexing is a kind of function, but not the
> other way round).

They do not intersect. Function has the syntax f(x,y,z). Index has the
syntax x(y,z).

>> The things you could do with your proposal could probably be achieved in
>> other ways. For example, I considered a "touch" primitive operation, which
>> similarly to Adjust, to be called each time you access a volatile object in
>> order to get its value. This could be useful for tracing, interlocking,
>> garbage collection, persistency layer purposes, etc.
> 
> Except that with the overloaded function call operator, you would not
> need "touch", as the function body would be already a right place to
> put all such tracing.

That depends on how you define the function "Y". Is it

   function "Y" (This : My_Other_Magic_Type) return My_Other_Magic_Type;

or

   function "Y" return My_Other_Magic_Type;

The latter is not "touch", the former is ambiguous:

   Foo (Y); -- Is it Foo(Y), Foo("Y"(Y)), Foo("Y"("Y"(Y)))?

-- 
Regards,
Dmitry A. Kazakov
http://www.dmitry-kazakov.de

Re: Why is Ada considered "too specialized" for scientific use

[Maciej Sobczak]

On 7 Kwi, 15:44, "Dmitry A. Kazakov" <mail...@dmitry-kazakov.de>
wrote:

> > As I've pointed out, that would be resolved in the same way as
> > overloading by return type.
>
> It must be a type different from My_Other_Magic_Type then. But the reader
> sees:
>
>     Y : My_Other_Magic_Type;
>
> so what is the type of Y? If it effectively is not the type declared, then
> this does not look like a good idea.

This is true and this is a result of the lack of parens. If Ada
adopted the convention of empty parens for parameterless functions,
then Y and Y () would not be as confusing.

> >>>    B := Y (3); -- function call on Y with one param
>
> >> Better it be ":="(B, "index" (Y, 3));
>
> > Except that the notion of "index" might not be appropriate. Function
> > is a more general term (indexing is a kind of function, but not the
> > other way round).
>
> They do not intersect. Function has the syntax f(x,y,z). Index has the
> syntax x(y,z).

You are not consistent. Index has the syntax x(y,z), which is
interchangeable with "index"(x,y,z). Function has the syntax f(x,y,z),
which might be an overloaded operator with syntax x(y,z). This makes
them overlapping.

> > Except that with the overloaded function call operator, you would not
> > need "touch", as the function body would be already a right place to
> > put all such tracing.
>
> That depends on how you define the function "Y".

"Y" is not a function, it is an object.
However, it can be used in the context where a different type is
expected that can be delivered by:

function "call" (This : My_Other_Magic_Type) return T;

where "call" is a new special operator name that I just invented.

> The latter is not "touch", the former is ambiguous:
>
>    Foo (Y); -- Is it Foo(Y), Foo("Y"(Y)), Foo("Y"("Y"(Y)))?

It is not ambiguous if Foo expects T and T /= My_Other_Magic_Type - in
that case this is basic overload resolution.

--
Maciej Sobczak * http://www.inspirel.com

Re: Why is Ada considered "too specialized" for scientific use

[Dmitry A. Kazakov]

On Wed, 7 Apr 2010 13:21:22 -0700 (PDT), Maciej Sobczak wrote:

> On 7 Kwi, 15:44, "Dmitry A. Kazakov" <mail...@dmitry-kazakov.de>
> wrote:
> 
>>> As I've pointed out, that would be resolved in the same way as
>>> overloading by return type.
>>
>> It must be a type different from My_Other_Magic_Type then. But the reader
>> sees:
>>
>> � � Y : My_Other_Magic_Type;
>>
>> so what is the type of Y? If it effectively is not the type declared, then
>> this does not look like a good idea.
> 
> This is true and this is a result of the lack of parens. If Ada
> adopted the convention of empty parens for parameterless functions,
> then Y and Y () would not be as confusing.

What is wrong with +Y or abs Y? If you have a operator ("+", "abs" or "()")
applied to an object then it is visually a different case.

>>>>> � �B := Y (3); -- function call on Y with one param
>>
>>>> Better it be ":="(B, "index" (Y, 3));
>>
>>> Except that the notion of "index" might not be appropriate. Function
>>> is a more general term (indexing is a kind of function, but not the
>>> other way round).
>>
>> They do not intersect. Function has the syntax f(x,y,z). Index has the
>> syntax x(y,z).
> 
> You are not consistent. Index has the syntax x(y,z), which is
> interchangeable with "index"(x,y,z). Function has the syntax f(x,y,z),
> which might be an overloaded operator with syntax x(y,z). This makes
> them overlapping.

I think you are conflating syntax and semantics. Syntactically function
call is not an operator and neither is indexing. Semantically all three are
just subprograms.

>>> Except that with the overloaded function call operator, you would not
>>> need "touch", as the function body would be already a right place to
>>> put all such tracing.
>>
>> That depends on how you define the function "Y".
> 
> "Y" is not a function, it is an object.
> However, it can be used in the context where a different type is
> expected that can be delivered by:
> 
> function "call" (This : My_Other_Magic_Type) return T;
> 
> where "call" is a new special operator name that I just invented.

OK, I think there is a name for this: "implicit type conversion." Is it
what you are proposing? IMO, arbitrary type conversions are unsafe. If I
would introduce something alike I would simply use the interface
inheritance, which Ada lacks so badly. E.g.

   type My_Other_Magic_Type is ... and interface T;
       -- T's interface is inherited
   ...
private
   type My_Other_Magic_Type is ...;

   function To_T  (This : My_Other_Magic_Type) return T;
   for Y as T use To_T;

Now Y implements the interface of T (i.e. is a member of T'Class), but has
the representation independent on T. All operations of T are implemented by
the composition of Convert with the corresponding operation of T (if not
overridden, of course).

For in/out operations you will also need a backward conversion:

   function From_T  (This : T) return My_Other_Magic_Type;
   for Y as T use From_T;

>> The latter is not "touch", the former is ambiguous:
>>
>> � �Foo (Y); -- Is it Foo(Y), Foo("Y"(Y)), Foo("Y"("Y"(Y)))?
> 
> It is not ambiguous if Foo expects T and T /= My_Other_Magic_Type - in
> that case this is basic overload resolution.

I meant the case when the result is My_Other_Magic_Type.

-- 
Regards,
Dmitry A. Kazakov
http://www.dmitry-kazakov.de

Re: Why is Ada considered "too specialized" for scientific use

[Vincent LAFAGE]

Nasser M. Abbasi a �crit :
> I was browsing the net for scientific software written in Ada, and came 
> across this strange statement:
> 
> http://farside.ph.utexas.edu/teaching/329/lectures/node7.html
> 
> "Scientific programming languages
> What is the best high-level language to use for scientific programming? 
> This, unfortunately, is a highly contentious question. Over the years, 
> literally hundreds of high-level languages have been developed. However, few 
> have stood the test of time. Many languages (e.g., Algol, Pascal, Haskell) 
> can be dismissed as ephemeral computer science fads. Others (e.g., Cobol, 
> Lisp, Ada) are too specialized to adapt for scientific use.
> 
> ......
> 
> The remaining options are FORTRAN 77 and C. I have chosen to use C "
> 
> I find this strange, because I think Ada can be the best programming 
> language for numerical work.  So, I do not know why the author above thinks 
> Ada is "too specialized to adapt for scientific use".  Is there something in 
> Ada which makes it hard to use for  scientific  programming?
> 
> The main problem I see with Ada for scientific use is that it does not have 
> as nearly as many packages and functions ready to use output of the box for 
> this, other than that, the language itself I think is better than Fortran 
> and C for scientific work.
> 
> (the above quote is from a course on Computational Physics at University of 
> Texas at Austin, may be I should write to the professor and ask him why he 
> said that, but I am not sure I'll get an answer, my experience is that most 
> professors do not answer email :)
> 
> --Nasser 

just my 2 (numerical) eurocents

I have been developping some Fortran (77) code during my PhD (17 years ago).
It was a basic MonteCarlo Code for simulation of electron-positron 
collision.
1001 SLOC (physical Sources Lines Of Code, measured with sloccount)
Not big, most work went into chiseling the analytical low-level 
expressions so that the numerical approach would be used at its most.
No dedicated simplification or hardware related optimisation beyond what 
the compiler provides with -O3.
Not much software engineering: only using Fortran 77 with COMMON thought 
as objects, and a minimum modular approach.
The result was fast, but it would be arrogant boasting to describe how 
much ;-)

Time passed and then Open MP appeared. I wanted to test my old pal 
reference code on my brand new two-core CPU, without much effort, I thought.
To ease the move to parallel code, and to learn more about the now 
unavoidable Fortran 90 (which simply copied the easiest part of Ada 83),
I first translated my code to F90 (not simply compiling the same code 
with an F90 compiler).
I turned the COMMON into modules (a.k.a. package) and a type within this 
package, and according to the famous equation :
     module + type = class
it resulted in an object oriented code ;-) .
1150 SLOC
Time-wise, I was paying only a 20% abstraction penalty with the same 
compiler. Not bad.

The objectification process was made in C++ at the same time. A quite 
painful translation indeed, but C++ was my way to earn money at that time...
1259 SLOC.
Not only the translation was painful, but the compilation gave me result 
flawed with memory faults that I had to debug. In the end, I finally had 
the same accuracy as Fortran 77, but...
The result looks like a good start for a flame war: C++ was 7.5 times 
slower than Fortran 77. With the same compiler (g++ versus g77/gfortran).
I do not think it is so significant in fact, as my algorithm relies 
heavily on complex number, which are well integrated in Fortran, but 
pays the full abstraction penalty in C++... The good way to do it in C++ 
would be to use libraries such as Boost or Blitz.
We can do it, but then do we really want to go through the hassle of 
extra layers?

My program wasn't still parallelized, and Ada became the next candidate 
for the test.
1120 SLOC.
The translation was swift, and when the compiler finaly let me go, the 
code ran (no debug needed) and was delivering the same accuracy as 
Fortran 77, and only a factor 2 of speed loss (compared to 7.5 for 
C++...). With gnat (to stay in the same compiler family).
Given that complex number are not hard-embedded in Ada, they should pay 
the abstraction price, but they keep the price low.

Later, I could capitalize on the tasks and protected objects to 
parallelize my program in Ada, which is as yet still not done in 
Fortran... But this is another story.

I plan to do it in Java as well, but I expect almost the same thing as 
for C++: it will not be testing the strong point of the language, but 
really peeking at its weakest point: complex numbers.

So, as far as performance is concerned, Fortran was, IN THIS CASE, the 
winner. Ada, was a strong contender.
I will not elaborate too much on the easiness of translation: when you 
have worked for many month with such a short program, and converted it 
to 2 other languages, the 3rd translation can not be so hard.

I believe that if I had to translate (or even write) other more 
significant codes, I would use the ability of Ada to interface with 
other languages: I would keep my low level routines in fast Fortran, and 
have the general flow of the computation driven by Ada, to make the 
whole picture clearer and more efficient.
In between, I try to code more in Fortran 90, which is a close nephew of 
Ada 83.

* I did the same kind of multi-language port for my education, with a 
quasi-random number generator, starting from a C++ version,
and I have not yet found a way as elegant, and memory-wise efficient, to 
store an upper triangular matrix as in C++.
* I also miss some syntaxic sugar of Fortran that allows to refer to 
line I of a matrix M as a vector with M(I, *)
=> If someone would like to discuss it, I will be glad to exchange on these.

Best regards,
Vincent

PS : for language crusade, I believe that the problem of Fortran is 
"Fortran users", who are mostly not computer scientist. I hear the Ada 
fans boast "Ada doesn't make assumptions about the programmer: he can be 
uneducated, but the compiler will save him", but I strongly doubt the 
actual population of Ada coders be AS uneducated (or 
software-engineering-unconscious) as the actual population of Fortran 
coders (averaged over the last 50 years).

Re: Why is Ada considered "too specialized" for scientific use

[Georg Bauhaus]

Vincent LAFAGE schrieb:

> Given that complex number are not hard-embedded in Ada, they should pay
> the abstraction price, but they keep the price low.

An example of Ada's complex type (a record) being less efficient
than something else is seen in the following Mandelbrot programs;
the difference between the two Ada entries is in part caused by
one of them using type Complex,

http://shootout.alioth.debian.org/u64q/performance.php?test=mandelbrot

I guess that (some) computations involving object of type Complex will be
faster when compilers generate SSE instructions for complex arithmetic.