HTML version of Scripted Foils prepared June 3 97

Foil 55 Comparison of Java and Fortran 77/90

From And the Future is ........: The Use of Java and the Web in Scientific Computing Hefei Computational Science and Beijing Web Tutorial -- May 27 and 30 1997. by Geoffrey C. Fox *
1 Clearly Java can easily replace Fortran as a Scientific Computing Language as can be compiled as efficiently and has much better software engineering (object) and graphics (web) capabilities
  • Fortran90 is object oriented but very small user base and not clear if will replace Fortran77
  • Note Fortran90 discussion started in 1978 (after Fortran77 agreed) and took fourteen years and even now Cray's Fortran77 compiler is (on C90 for numerical relativity) much better than their Fortran90 compiler.
  • Originally Fortran90 (as Fortran8X) was designed precisely for Cray architecture systems!
  • This illustrates that informal standards activities (as in the Web and HPF) are most appropriate for rapidly changing technologies
2 Java can unify classic science and engineering computations with more qualitative macroscopic "distributed simulation and modelling" arena which is critical in military and to some extent industry
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