Re: [tlug] Fortran --> Python (was linux engineer)

[Jim Breen <jimbreen@example.com>]

On 8 June 2012 15:59, Stephen J. Turnbull <stephen@example.com> wrote:
> Bottom line: FORTRAN is designed to encourage efficient numerical
> coding techniques,

Absolutely. Hence its name: FORmula TRANslation.

> and C is not.

By the time C was designed, such a desperate striving for run-time
efficiency had largely passed.

At one time in the early 70s I was working on CDC3400/3600 mainframes.
They were 48-bit word machines, with two 24-bit instructions per word.
A few instructions were 48-bitters, and of course the targets of jumps had
to be at the start of a word, so the assembler would fill in gaps with
no-ops. It was discovered that a jump to the following word was about
0.4µsec faster than a no-op, so the gun programmers would go through
their code sprinkling "JP *+1" in the appropriate places.

Ah those were the days, when men were men, women were small furry
creatures, ....  (nods off)

Jim

-- 
Jim Breen
Adjunct Snr Research Fellow, Clayton School of IT, Monash University
Webmaster: Hawthorn Rowing Club, Treasurer: Japanese Studies Centre
Graduate student: Language Technology Group, University of Melbourne