Re: General compiler question.

[Tim Prince <tprince at computer dot org>]

At 01:24 AM 10/26/2004, John Vaul wrote:

> I apologise if this is too off-topic and/or a bit of a silly question.
>
> Given that gfortran is written is C, why don't we just use C instead of 
> Fortran?
>
> Are all fortran compilers written in C?

Most Fortran compilers nowadays are written mostly in C or C++.  That 
doesn't give up the advantages of Fortran, although it allows Fortran to 
take advantage of some of the development work which goes into those other 
compilers.  According to histories, a big concern of the original Fortran 
development team was the difficulty of persuading customers to use Fortran 
rather than assembler, in which much of Fortran was written.  Also 
according to history, they succeeded well, and Fortran has retained to a 
remarkable degree some of the characteristics responsible for that success.
Most java interpreters are written mostly in C and C++ at the core, even if 
50% of the library is java.  That doesn't give them the performance of C or 
Fortran, nor does it persuade people that java is a wasted effort.  Most 
C++ compilers have ancestry going back to C.  Do you think you could 
persuade their adherents to give up C++?


Tim Prince