Fortran -vs- C for Numerical Computing

[cn7gr8ag at ariel.unm.edu]

Eugene N. Miya writes:

*I don't think this is really a question which LANGUAGE is better.
*If you are really in a hurry, and want something portable,
*You should check out one of the numerous numeric libraries (most written in
*FORTRAN) this includes Dongarra's netlib, the Scientific Recepes book,
*and others.  Don't write something (especially, 8000 lines [I don't know
*how you get this figure before hand]) when you might be able to
*get it for free.

*This perpetuates FORTRAN, but if you are in a hurry [like the prostitute
*says, "They all seem to be.."] this is the way to go.  I should have mailed
*this, but I think it offers a lesson on comparisons.

This leads me to believe that my first posting may not have been entirely
clear.  The point I needed to clarify is that the speed of run time of the 
code to be optimized for a mixed mainframe/personal computer environment.

The quality of the code and the quality of the code on both the large
and smaller systems is of concern to me. I am aware of the Numerical 
Recipes book in C and it should either fill or nearly fill most of my
requirements.  This program will take a long time to write, so it won't be
your typical "fly by night" sort of programming.

By the way 5000-8000 lines was just an intelligent guess at the size based
on similar modelling efforts by other investigators.

Bill Rider