Simon: I sent part of your post to Steve Jobs and he wrote back (!). Here's what he said. Is he still dancing around the issue about gfortran?
Tracy Begin forwarded message: > From: Steve Jobs <[email protected]> > Date: March 20, 2011 3:29:01 PM EDT > To: "[email protected]" <[email protected]> > Subject: Fwd: R and your stance on Fortran > > >> >> Xcode 4 (and our general evolution away from gcc to clang/LLVM) >> does not change the availability of Fortran (or the R programming >> language) on the Mac. GNU will continue to distribute GCC (and >> gfortran) for the Mac and code generated by that compiler will >> continue to integrate with code built with our modern clang/LLVM >> tools. (As an aside, our recommended solution for Fortran on the >> Mac has long been the Intel Fortran compiler -- it generates much >> better performing code than GCC's Fortran). >> >>> >>> >>> Sent from my iPad >>> >>> Begin forwarded message: >>> >>>> Resent-From: [email protected] >>>> From: Tracy Lightcap <[email protected]> >>>> Date: March 17, 2011 9:38:32 AM PDT >>>> Resent-To: [email protected] >>>> To: [email protected] >>>> Subject: R and your stance on Fortran >>>> >>>> Steve: >>>> >>>> I use R as my main stats engine, as do a lot of Mac users; >>>> there's even a list serv for Mac R users. Now I read this in one >>>> of the posts there: >>>> >>>> As Brian (Ripley, professor of applied statistics, Oxford) >>>> pointed out, R doesn't care. The only annoying part for me as a >>>> Mac binary maintainer is that it means Apple has abandoned the >>>> only branch that supported Fortran back-end, so in the future we >>>> will not be able to provide native Fortran for Xcode. This has >>>> been known for a while and Apple's stance is that they don't care >>>> about Fortran, so in some (but not immediate) future we may be >>>> back to the mess of mixing compilers. >>>> >>>> Note that LLVM and clang don't really have any real benefits for >>>> the R users so far. Tests suggest that they make some parts >>>> slower and we could not measure any overall benefit (unlike let's >>>> say on arm), so people were not rushing to llvm/clang so far. >>>> Apple's move to llvm/clang is really based on a political >>>> decision, not a technical one. The only benefit I see so far is >>>> what Brian mentioned as well that some people will have to >>>> realize that gcc is not the standard and can test on other >>>> compilers to find their bugs. >>>> >>>> Cheers, >>>> Simon (Urbanek, statistics research, AT&T Labs) >>>> >>>> Is it really true that Apple, a company that is alive today >>>> largely due to its inroads in education, is willing to put the >>>> distribution of the most rapidly growing statistics engine used >>>> by academics in jeopardy because " Apple's stance is that they >>>> don't care about Fortran "? R has recently been adopted as the >>>> official language by the Interuniversity Consortium for Political >>>> and Social Research at the University of Michigan, the biggest >>>> trainer of social science grad students in the country. It is >>>> being adopted by universities and colleges, governments, and >>>> research institutions at a staggering pace (the price is right, >>>> you know). That the use of this extremely useful and powerful >>>> application on the Macs in education should be put at risk by a >>>> simple reluctance to not accommodate Fortran is not just unwise; >>>> it's just plain silly. >>>> >>>> Is Simon right? If he is, fix it. Now. >>>> >>>> Tracy Lightcap >>>> Professor and Chair >>>> Department of Political Science >>>> LaGrange College >>>> 601 Broad St. >>>> LaGrange GA 30240-2999 >>>> (O) [email protected] (H) [email protected] >>>> 706.880.8226 >>>> www.lagrange.edu/academics/political-science/faculty/tlightcap.aspx >>>> >>>> >>>> >>>> >>>> >> Tracy Lightcap Professor and Chair Department of Political Science LaGrange College 601 Broad St. LaGrange GA 30240-2999 (O) [email protected] (H) [email protected] 706.880.8226 www.lagrange.edu/academics/political-science/faculty/tlightcap.aspx [[alternative HTML version deleted]]
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