On Thu, 2011-03-03 at 13:48 +0000, Kevin Wright wrote: [ . . . ] > 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.
Well I wouldn't call C and Fortran ideal for the task they are being used for. Nor is C++. Or D, Go, etc. Interestingly the scientific community are moving to a situation where they use Python to write all the GUI and coordination code managing the C, C++ and Fortran code that does all the grunt computation. cf. SciPy, http://www.scipy.org/ > He is saying, however, that there are domains where java isn't the > best choice. Indeed. There are some people that claim that JVMs can run code Java faster than C++ or Fortran code runs for the same problem -- the rationale being that a JIT optimizes the code that is actually executing whereas an AoT optimizer has to cover all bases. However until there is real objective data, it is all just conjecture. Of course, most of the "Big Science" codes were written in the 1960s and 1970s and no-one has the resources to rewrite the codes in sensible languages. Well until Chapel, X10, Fortress, C++0x with Just::Thread Pro, etc. are ready for production use there is no point, you just have very bright Fortran compiler folk making 50 year old sequential codes run in parallel -- with the help of OpenMP and MPI. The observation is that Java is not in the frame for these rewrites which is why Python has become the dynamic language of choice: it's all native code, so no place for a JVM. However, I digress . . . ;-) -- 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
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