Should I convert FORTRAN code to C?

[Bob Allison]

In article <2742 at utastro.UUCP> rlr at utastro.UUCP (Randy Ricklefs) writes:
>1) Are people actually initiating new projects in FORTRAN, or are they
>	maintaining and porting old FORTRAN code?
>2) Does the answer to 1) change if we restrict discussion to PC's & Macs?

  I'd say that on PCs most of the stuff going on is porting.  But that is
  because there is a lot of stuff on mainframes which people want to run
  on PCs and are finally getting the horsepower to do.  I was actually 
  surprised by how much new development is going on.

>3) Is c a suitable replacement for FORTRAN in terms of mathematical capabil-
>	ities and portablility?

  Plenty of other postings arguing this issue.  I will just toss in my
  opinion that you'll almost always get better execution time on a FORTRAN
  program than a comparable C program (see my next posting).

>4) Are there reliable FORTRAN to c translators available under MS-DOS or UNIX
>	that will allow moving over to c without re-coding the world?
>

  I've seen some ads in typical PC magazines.  Buy a few and take a look.
  But be skeptical: call them up, ask them hard questions.  Most of them
  will require at least some user intervention.  Almost all of them generate
  crummy source, which you practically have to rewrite before you can do
  any serious maintenance.  Be prepared to do some debugging.  

  All of this boils down to: how much are you willing to invest to move
  to a "modern" language?  Is execution speed important?  What are the
  real reasons for switching?  Are you going to have to maintain this
  later?  Try to figure out the economics of the effort, then decide.
  How much time/effort/money are you going to save down the road by 
  investing a bunch of it now? It might be better to spend the time 
  doing something else.

>Thanks in advance for the help!
>

  We're always willing to offer opinions when it isn't our project :-)