On 3 Mar 2011 13:03, "Miroslav Pokorny" <[email protected]> wrote: > > > > On Thu, Mar 3, 2011 at 11:54 PM, Russel Winder <[email protected]> wrote: >> >> On Thu, 2011-03-03 at 21:47 +1100, Miroslav Pokorny wrote: >> [ . . . ] >> > >> > Scientists dont worry about what language or notations etc their >> > material is in, nor do they constantly strive to reinvent new means to >> > express their work. >> >> This statement is wrong, fundamentally wrong. As a person who once was >> in the theoretical particle physics area, I can assure you that >> scientists care very much about the language and notations used for >> expressions of models and experimental results. Moreover there is a >> constant striving for better representations. In particle, there have >> been many different forms of expression over the years using different >> modelling systems. All mathematics, obviously, but various different >> branches of it. >> > > But are they constantly reinventing how they define or express formulas etc ? >
Yes, absolutely. This is a big part of professional mathematics. > Just look at all the different ways there are to assign a value to a variable, there are literally dozens of different symbols and tokens and yet im pretty sure mathematicians still use "=". > There was a time before mathematicians used zero, then the argument between newton and leibniz over notation for calculus, then matrices, and complex numbers, and set theory. Not to mention notation introduced by theoretical physicists. Notation evolved to efficiently represent new concepts. Even, yes, equality is now known to come in different forms, with different notation. >> >> [ . . . ] >> >> > By using java i can reuse more libraries than on other platforms or >> > languages because its a better fit. >> By using java-the-platform, yes. Scala is every bit as effective in using these libraries as java-the-language is, by design. >> But high performance computation stuff will still be done in Fortran and >> C++. If you are happy to exclude practicing your software development >> activity in those areas then restricting yourself to the JVM is fine. >> > > So what exactly are you saying, dont learn any new languages the old ones are just fine because they are closer to machine language and all that dynamic typing etc nonsense just makes everything slower ? No. He's saying that C and Fortran have characteristics that make them ideal for that particular domain. This doesn't in any way imply that a dynamic language isn't more suitable in a different domain. He is saying, however, that there are domains where java isn't the best choice. > >> -- >> >> Russel. >> ============================================================================= >> Dr Russel Winder t: +44 20 7585 2200 voip: sip:[email protected] >> 41 Buckmaster Road m: +44 7770 465 077 xmpp: [email protected] >> London SW11 1EN, UK w: www.russel.org.uk skype: russel_winder > > > > > -- > mP > > -- > You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "The Java Posse" group. > To post to this group, send email to [email protected]. > To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [email protected]. > For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/javaposse?hl=en. -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "The Java Posse" group. To post to this group, send email to [email protected]. To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [email protected]. For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/javaposse?hl=en.
