I will be starting at a 4-yr institution for a math degree.
The school material states that the student should be learning a high- level computer language such as Fortran, C, or C++.
My question is... having a choice, is any one language better in any way over the others? I might be asking 'better' in terms of 'ease of use', 'ease of learning', or 'difficult to learn but more powerful/ useful once learned', or 'less likely to become obsolete in the next 20 yrs', etc...
So what do you folks think? What is the best language for a beginning student to choose, and what are the some of the reasons that you think so?
I might post this question in a programming group as well.
gk...@yahoo.com wrote: > I will be starting at a 4-yr institution for a math degree. > The school material states that the student should be learning > a high-level computer language such as Fortran, C, or C++.
> My question is... having a choice, is any one language better in any > way over the others? I might be asking 'better' in terms of 'ease of > use', 'ease of learning', or 'difficult to learn but more powerful/ > useful once learned', or 'less likely to become obsolete in the next > 20 yrs', etc...
> So what do you folks think? What is the best language for a beginning > student to choose, and what are the some of the reasons that you think > so? I might post this question in a programming group as well. > thanks
None of these languages is likely to become obsolete in 20 years. Beyond that, "better language" is pretty much subjective. What do you want to accomplish?... ...get a programming job: C++ ...satisfy a curriculum requirement as easily as possible: Fortran ...get a solid foundation in programming concepts: C That's just my opinion. -- John Forkosh ( mailto: j...@f.com where j=john and f=forkosh )
> gk...@yahoo.com wrote: > > I will be starting at a 4-yr institution for a math degree. > > The school material states that the student should be learning > > a high-level computer language such as Fortran, C, or C++.
> > My question is... having a choice, is any one language better in any > > way over the others? I might be asking 'better' in terms of 'ease of > > use', 'ease of learning', or 'difficult to learn but more powerful/ > > useful once learned', or 'less likely to become obsolete in the next > > 20 yrs', etc...
> > So what do you folks think? What is the best language for a beginning > > student to choose, and what are the some of the reasons that you think > > so? I might post this question in a programming group as well. > > thanks
> None of these languages is likely to become obsolete in 20 years. > Beyond that, "better language" is pretty much subjective. > What do you want to accomplish?... > ...get a programming job: C++ > ...satisfy a curriculum requirement as easily as possible: Fortran > ...get a solid foundation in programming concepts: C
Keeping in mind that if you have a solid foundation in programming concepts, other languages, like Python, are much easier to pick up.
gk...@yahoo.com wrote: > I will be starting at a 4-yr institution for a math degree.
> The school material states that the student should be learning a high- > level computer language such as Fortran, C, or C++.
There are dozens of languages, expanding the pool also to languages such as R, Mathematica, Maple, Matlab, Java, python, perl, etc.
I personally have not seen to many guides on programming languages for mathematical purposes, but I can summarize my opinions.
In short: Fortran - oldest major language; it was designed for engineers originally, so it will look more foreign to programmers. Despite its age, it is one of the most heavily-used languages on supercomputers.
C/C++ - the core of these are the same. I believe statistics give the two about equal amounts, although that is dubious since C can be easily called from C++. Many libraries are C, though, so C would probably be preferred over C++ simply from a neophyte's perspective.
R, Mathematica, Maple, Matlab: All of these are specifically designed for mathematics. The latter three all require specific mathematics packages (although Octave as an open source near-implementation of matlab). I've used each of these a tad, but I'm willing to bet that these are not what the school intends for learning.
Java - One of the most popular languages; typically used in introductory programming courses. For that reason, the largest body of material can generally be found in Java, although its default library setup isn't terribly mathematics-welcoming.
C# - Similar to Java, although it is a Microsoft derivative. I haven't played around here much, but I think it's more welcoming to mathematics work, although not from a cross-platform point of view.
Python, ruby, perl, etc. - these are your newer languages, which tend to have more cult-ish proponents. I would stay away from these, as they are your scripting languages, and less concern themselves with mathematics work.
My recommendation is to pick up Fortran, C, or C++, with no real preference between them. All of these have vibrant communities and are so widely used that the largest mathematics packages (e.g., lapack) will be accessible from them. And don't worry about them dying away; they've been here and heavily used for several decades, and still will be used through your working career.
> I might post this question in a programming group as well.
This is not a good question for comp.lang.*, since it tends to invite flame wars. The (good) advice you will get will most likely amount to the following: "Pick a language that suits you well and stick to it."
> I will be starting at a 4-yr institution for a math degree.
> The school material states that the student should be learning a high- > level computer language such as Fortran, C, or C++.
> My question is... having a choice, is any one language better in any > way over the others? I might be asking 'better' in terms of 'ease of > use', 'ease of learning', or 'difficult to learn but more powerful/ > useful once learned', or 'less likely to become obsolete in the next > 20 yrs', etc...
> So what do you folks think? What is the best language for a beginning > student to choose, and what are the some of the reasons that you think > so?
> I might post this question in a programming group as well.
> thanks
I'm not an experienced C or Fortran programmer, but I can say that Python is very easy to learn and from experience has a growing number of mathematical and computational science packages. For someone who would like to learn to program in something that makes programming less tedious than C, but is still very powerful, python may be of interest.
If you chose to go the python way, you can use of Matplotlib (http:// matplotlib.sourceforge.net/) to achieve some Matlab(tm) plotting functionality, and SciPy/NumPy (http://www.scipy.org/) for numerical work. If after learning python you find that computation is something that interests you, you should look into other languages, like C.
I admit, I'm just as much a (theoretical) computer scientist as I am a mathematician, so take what I say with a fair grain of salt.
On Mon, 16 Jun 2008 15:41:51 -0700 (PDT), gk...@yahoo.com wrote: >I will be starting at a 4-yr institution for a math degree.
>The school material states that the student should be learning a high- >level computer language such as Fortran, C, or C++.
>My question is... having a choice, is any one language better in any >way over the others? I might be asking 'better' in terms of 'ease of >use', 'ease of learning', or 'difficult to learn but more powerful/ >useful once learned', or 'less likely to become obsolete in the next >20 yrs', etc...
>So what do you folks think? What is the best language for a beginning >student to choose, and what are the some of the reasons that you think >so?
Realistically, to work in scientific computing you need to learn two programming languages: one for prototyping and another for doing actual heavy-duty computations.
For prototyping: Matlab, Python
For computing: Fortran, C/C++
Also, for mathematicians knowing Maple or Mathematica is a big benefit. Which ones you learn depends on what is used in teaching and which software is available. If decent ability is reached, picking up further languages later as needed is not a problem (at least as long as one remains inside the procedural/object-oriented family).
> I will be starting at a 4-yr institution for a math degree.
> The school material states that the student should be learning a high- > level computer language such as Fortran, C, or C++.
> My question is... having a choice, is any one language better in any > way over the others? I might be asking 'better' in terms of 'ease of > use', 'ease of learning', or 'difficult to learn but more powerful/ > useful once learned', or 'less likely to become obsolete in the next > 20 yrs', etc...
> So what do you folks think? What is the best language for a beginning > student to choose, and what are the some of the reasons that you think > so?
> I might post this question in a programming group as well.
> thanks
You are talking about two different types of languages. C and Fortran are traditional "procedural" languages. They are both easy to learn.
C++ is an "object oriented" language. Whilst it pretty well contains C as a proper subset, if you are learning C++ you are really learning object oriented programming, and this is very powerful but with much more abstract structure.
If all you want do with a computer is solve computational programs, like numerically solving integrals, counting permutations, or running Monte Carlo simulations, C and Fortran will do fine. If you want to write programs to be used by others, including full on Windows applications (eg with a Windows style interface), then you will pretty much have to learn object oriented programming which means in this case C++.
I think Fortran is somewhat simpler than C because its a bit more verbose, but that may only be me. However, Fortran is a complete dead-end. C is far more widely used (now, for writing programs) than Fortran and has a clear "upgrade path" to C++ and hence object oriented programming.
So I would learn C in the first instance, and "upgrade" this to C++ when and if required.
You can download for free a state of the art Windows C++ programming environment by downloading Microsoft Visual Studio 2008 Express Edition, which has several other (object oriented) languages packaged in as well. If you tell it to create a C++ console application, it will set it up so you can pretty well just write normal C code and it will work. The Help, Documentation and Tutorials are superb, but unfortunately are written from an object-oriented perspective. You will need to either buy a book on C, or use any of the billion online tutorials and references on C that exist on the internet.
Finally, on another note, it is very much more effective for you and people who use Usenet if you cross-post rather than sending similar posts to different groups; all the answers from all different groups will appear as a single thread in all groups.
> C# - Similar to Java, although it is a Microsoft derivative. I haven't > played around here much, but I think it's more welcoming to mathematics > work, although not from a cross-platform point of view.
C# is the language I do all my programming in. It is more similar to Java than C, as you say. Its superb, but the maths functions available in the libraries (more specifically .NET) are shithouse. I use it for maths programming only because everything else about it is great.
Again, its a fully object-oriented environment, and you can't write in C# without understanding these concepts. These are tricky. Its easier to learn a procedural language like Fortran or C than an object oriented one. Your course advisory doesn't require you to do object oriented programming, hence my suggestion to simply learn C first.
I might also add that the people who suggested specialist mathematics packages are missing the point. The course requirements are basically that you be able to write a machine readable algorithm for solving questions about numbers, not that you can Google a symbolic calculator.
>Python, ruby, perl, etc. - these are your newer languages, which tend to >have more cult-ish proponents. I would stay away from these, as they are >your scripting languages, and less concern themselves with mathematics work.
You know nothing whatever about Python. (Or maybe you're confusing mathemtatics with numerical computation.) I do abstract mathematical things in Python all the time, very easily.
An example of something that it seems to me would be much more difficult in the languages you recommend for mathematical work: I have a Sqrt function such that Sqrt(5) is _exactly_ the square root of 5. Exactly, not a numeric approximation like sqrt(5).
>My recommendation is to pick up Fortran, C, or C++, with no real >preference between them. All of these have vibrant communities and are >so widely used that the largest mathematics packages (e.g., lapack) will >be accessible from them. And don't worry about them dying away; they've >been here and heavily used for several decades, and still will be used >through your working career.
>> I might post this question in a programming group as well.
>This is not a good question for comp.lang.*, since it tends to invite >flame wars. The (good) advice you will get will most likely amount to >the following: "Pick a language that suits you well and stick to it."
> >Python, ruby, perl, etc. - these are your newer languages, which tend to > >have more cult-ish proponents. I would stay away from these, as they are > >your scripting languages, and less concern themselves with mathematics work.
> You know nothing whatever about Python. (Or maybe you're > confusing mathemtatics with numerical computation.) I do > abstract mathematical things in Python all the time, very > easily.
> An example of something that it seems to me would be > much more difficult in the languages you recommend > for mathematical work: I have a Sqrt function such that > Sqrt(5) is _exactly_ the square root of 5. Exactly, > not a numeric approximation like sqrt(5).
> >My recommendation is to pick up Fortran, C, or C++, with no real > >preference between them. All of these have vibrant communities and are > >so widely used that the largest mathematics packages (e.g., lapack) will > >be accessible from them. And don't worry about them dying away; they've > >been here and heavily used for several decades, and still will be used > >through your working career.
> >> I might post this question in a programming group as well.
> >This is not a good question for comp.lang.*, since it tends to invite > >flame wars. The (good) advice you will get will most likely amount to > >the following: "Pick a language that suits you well and stick to it."
> David C. Ullrich
MIT teaches Scheme to its incoming freshmen. With good reason.
Daniel da Silva wrote: > On Jun 16, 6:41 pm, gk...@yahoo.com wrote: >> I will be starting at a 4-yr institution for a math degree.
>> The school material states that the student should be learning a high- >> level computer language such as Fortran, C, or C++.
>> My question is... having a choice, is any one language better in any >> way over the others? I might be asking 'better' in terms of 'ease of >> use', 'ease of learning', or 'difficult to learn but more powerful/ >> useful once learned', or 'less likely to become obsolete in the next >> 20 yrs', etc...
>> So what do you folks think? What is the best language for a beginning >> student to choose, and what are the some of the reasons that you think >> so?
>> I might post this question in a programming group as well.
>> thanks
> I'm not an experienced C or Fortran programmer, but I can say that > Python is very easy to learn and from experience has a growing number > of mathematical and computational science packages. For someone who > would like to learn to program in something that makes programming > less tedious than C, but is still very powerful, python may be of > interest.
> If you chose to go the python way, you can use of Matplotlib (http:// > matplotlib.sourceforge.net/) to achieve some Matlab(tm) plotting > functionality, and SciPy/NumPy (http://www.scipy.org/) for numerical > work. If after learning python you find that computation is something > that interests you, you should look into other languages, like C.
> I admit, I'm just as much a (theoretical) computer scientist as I am a > mathematician, so take what I say with a fair grain of salt.
Anybody interested in computations, computing and mathematics should definitely look at Sage:
> I will be starting at a 4-yr institution for a math degree.
> The school material states that the student should be learning a high- > level computer language such as Fortran, C, or C++.
> My question is... having a choice, is any one language better in any > way over the others? I might be asking 'better' in terms of 'ease of > use', 'ease of learning', or 'difficult to learn but more powerful/ > useful once learned', or 'less likely to become obsolete in the next > 20 yrs', etc...
> So what do you folks think? What is the best language for a beginning > student to choose, and what are the some of the reasons that you think > so?
> I might post this question in a programming group as well.
> thanks
Two more suggestions at the opposite ends of the coolness spectrum
1) Excel VBA. Despite its roots in Basic, modern VBA is a perfectly adequate procedural language with all of the standard control structures, etc. with the added benefit that it has an gentle learning curve. The spreadsheet which can be programatically manipulated gives a natural IO with little programming overhead. This is because it is natural to place input and/or output in columns and to generate graphs of it as well, both of which are easy from Excel. The problem with this suggestion is that Microsoft is not cool in academia (often for good reasons) and even apart from that there are drawbacks to tying yourself too closely to one operating system.
2) Haskell. This is a modern functional language whose basic notation is fairly mathematical. It has a steeper learning curve but there is finally a good elementary introduction in "Programming in Haskell" by Graham Hutton. The book "The Haskell Road to Logic, Maths and Programming" by Kees Doets and Jan van Eijck is a good exploration of the link between Haskell and mathematics. This language is a good choice if you are more interested in pure as opposed to applied mathematics. SML is another language in the same genre.
In addition to my two suggestions I agree what others have said to the effect that you can't go wrong in learning C.
On Tue, 17 Jun 2008 07:17:04 -0700 (PDT), scattered
<former_schiz...@hotmail.com> wrote: >The book "The Haskell Road to Logic, Maths and >Programming" by Kees Doets and Jan van Eijck is a good exploration of >the link between Haskell and mathematics. This language is a good >choice if you are more interested in pure as opposed to applied >mathematics.
In the dim and distant past, I learned Miranda from Bird & Wadler; and in the even dimmer and more distant past, I did a degree in mathematics; on the other hand, in spite of some dabbling, I don't have a sound knowledge of either theoretical computer science or "real-world" programming techniques. Would this book be at too elementary a level for me, or might I still learn something from it if I want to try my hand at programming again?
> > >Python, ruby, perl, etc. - these are your newer languages, which tend to > > >have more cult-ish proponents. I would stay away from these, as they are > > >your scripting languages, and less concern themselves with mathematics work.
> > You know nothing whatever about Python. (Or maybe you're > > confusing mathemtatics with numerical computation.) I do > > abstract mathematical things in Python all the time, very > > easily.
> > An example of something that it seems to me would be > > much more difficult in the languages you recommend > > for mathematical work: I have a Sqrt function such that > > Sqrt(5) is _exactly_ the square root of 5. Exactly, > > not a numeric approximation like sqrt(5).
> > >My recommendation is to pick up Fortran, C, or C++, with no real > > >preference between them. All of these have vibrant communities and are > > >so widely used that the largest mathematics packages (e.g., lapack) will > > >be accessible from them. And don't worry about them dying away; they've > > >been here and heavily used for several decades, and still will be used > > >through your working career.
> > >> I might post this question in a programming group as well.
> > >This is not a good question for comp.lang.*, since it tends to invite > > >flame wars. The (good) advice you will get will most likely amount to > > >the following: "Pick a language that suits you well and stick to it."
> > David C. Ullrich
> MIT teaches Scheme to its incoming freshmen. With good reason.
> On Tue, 17 Jun 2008 07:17:04 -0700 (PDT), scattered
> <former_schiz...@hotmail.com> wrote: > >The book "The Haskell Road to Logic, Maths and > >Programming" by Kees Doets and Jan van Eijck is a good exploration of > >the link between Haskell and mathematics. This language is a good > >choice if you are more interested in pure as opposed to applied > >mathematics.
> In the dim and distant past, I learned Miranda from Bird & Wadler; > and in the even dimmer and more distant past, I did a degree in > mathematics; on the other hand, in spite of some dabbling, I don't > have a sound knowledge of either theoretical computer science or > "real-world" programming techniques. Would this book be at too > elementary a level for me, or might I still learn something from > it if I want to try my hand at programming again?
The book by Hutton is better for learning the language. It has some mathematically interesting examples such as an version of Conway's Game of Life (albeit with no graphics - just ASCII representations of successive generations). I don't have a copy of the other readily accessible (I had obtained it via inter-library loan) but I seem to recall that it was primarily a discrete math text which used Haskell as a tool and didn't go very deep into the language per se. A good book for delving deeper into the language and seeing more real-world example is "The Haskell School of Expression: Learning Functional Programming through Multimedia" by Paul Hudak. This book has interesting examples which include simple fractal-drawing programs.
gk...@yahoo.com writes: > I will be starting at a 4-yr institution for a math degree.
> The school material states that the student should be learning a high- > level computer language such as Fortran, C, or C++.
Here are some arguments in favour of Common Lisp (CL) over C and C++
Automatic "garbage collection" so you can write sophisticated programs without having to learn how to manage memory.
Unlimited integers, rationals, gaussian integers, and Q[i]. This is usually seen as a draw-back (bloated) but handy if you are studying mathematics.
Built in complex numbers eg (expt -1 1/3) => #C(0.5 0.8660254) ie cube root of minus one is 0.5+0.866i The specification devotes about 40 pages to nailing down the details of where the branch cuts run for all the transcendental functions.
Programs will run without type declarations, which is convenient for trying things out interactively, and getting programs written quickly.
If you go round putting in type declarations, eg, (declare (type (integer 0 100) i) (single-float x y) (type (complex double-float) z)))
most CL compilers will make good use of them and generate native code about half the speed of C. Good enough for any undergraduate numerical work.
Array bounds checking. There are commands for adjusting arrays and for "displaced arrays". They look quite complicated. They let you set up different "views" of blocks of memory. For example, twelve numbers might be a 3 x 4 matrix in one view and a vector of 12 elements in another. C also lets you do that, but more simply, because it does not check array bounds. As a maths student you don't have time to master the difficult art of debugging code in languages without array bounds checking.
Better scoping rules. In C all variables are lexical and have dynamic extent. In CL the lexcial variables have indefinite extent. (This is related to garbage collection.) CL offers the option of special variables that have indefinite scope and dynamic extent, which is occasionally useful.
Lexical variables with dynamic extent, which is all C provides, are obselete and there is no reason for a mathematician to waste time learning to code around the difficulties they cause.
The built in object system, CLOS, is well suited to the needs of mathematicians, see "Common Lisp, Typing and Mathematics" amongst the papers of Francis Sergeraert at
CL uses fully parenthesised prefix notation. (+ x y) instead of x + y. This is clumsy. On the other hand C and Fortran do not offer the kind of two-dimension notation used in mathematics. You still have to take your mathematics and encode it in the special notation of the programming language, and you have to learn the precedence rules. Fully parenthesised prefix notation is clumsier but simpler.
Here is a contingent disadvantage of CL
All those parentheses. You have to use a syntax-aware editor and learn to read the indentation that it does automatically. Trying to count parentheses doesn't work. You have to auto-indent and work out whether you have got the parentheses right by the way things are lined up vertically. http://www.cawtech.demon.co.uk/lisp/before-you-start.html
This pretty much restricts you to Emacs. Many people use emacs anyway, for other reasons, and find that the syntax-aware editing commands makes up for the clunkiness for the notation. For them there is no disadvantage. However, if you cannot find a syntax-aware editor that you are happy with, don't bother with CL, the language isn't usable without one.
Here is an important disadvantage.
CL is out of fashion and not widely used. It is popular enough that you can get prompt help on comp.lang.lisp, but there are still big advantages to using the same language as your fellow students. You could end up having to link to library routines written in C using the Foreign Function Interface, (FFI), which is more computer cruft you don't want to waste time on.
gk...@yahoo.com wrote: > I will be starting at a 4-yr institution for a math degree.
> The school material states that the student should be learning a high- > level computer language such as Fortran, C, or C++.
> My question is... having a choice, is any one language better in any > way over the others? I might be asking 'better' in terms of 'ease of > use', 'ease of learning', or 'difficult to learn but more powerful/ > useful once learned', or 'less likely to become obsolete in the next > 20 yrs', etc...
> So what do you folks think? What is the best language for a beginning > student to choose, and what are the some of the reasons that you think > so?
I don't think it's a good idea to start with C++; it's more difficult to learn than C. There are many good books as well as an active newsgroup for C. As a first language to learn, I would put C ahead of C++ and Fortran.
I've read many good comments about Python, but haven't learnt it. I've used one-line perl commands to edit several files at once. I think some have called Perl a "write once" language; it can be difficult to decipher . I didn't like Java because of all the public classes; but we had to do programs with graphics, so we needed to use many classes. With just math, fewer classes would be needed.
Some languages such as Haskell or APL are interpreted. Today, I wouldn't really recommend APL, because of the special character set. But having a language for prototyping is good, and often speed isn't important.
> gk...@yahoo.com wrote: > > I will be starting at a 4-yr institution for a math degree.
> > The school material states that the student should be learning a high- > > level computer language such as Fortran, C, or C++.
> > My question is... having a choice, is any one language better in any > > way over the others? I might be asking 'better' in terms of 'ease of > > use', 'ease of learning', or 'difficult to learn but more powerful/ > > useful once learned', or 'less likely to become obsolete in the next > > 20 yrs', etc...
> > So what do you folks think? What is the best language for a beginning > > student to choose, and what are the some of the reasons that you think > > so?
> I don't think it's a good idea to start with C++; it's more difficult > to learn than C. There are many good books as well as an active > newsgroup for C. As a first language to learn, I would put > C ahead of C++ and Fortran.
> I've read many good comments about Python, but haven't learnt it. > I've used one-line perl commands to edit several files at once. > I think some have called Perl a "write once" language; it > can be difficult to decipher . I didn't like Java because > of all the public classes; but we had to do programs > with graphics, so we needed to use many classes. > With just math, fewer classes would be needed.
> Some languages such as Haskell or APL are interpreted. > Today, I wouldn't really recommend APL, because > of the special character set. But having a language > for prototyping is good, and often speed isn't > important.
> So I'd consider C, Python and Haskell.
> David Bernier
Good suggestions. A minor point of fact is that Haskell has both interpreted (Hugs) and compiled (GHC) implementations, though someone learning it would probably want to start out with Hugs.
> gk...@yahoo.com wrote: > > I will be starting at a 4-yr institution for a math degree. > > The school material states that the student should be learning > > a high-level computer language such as Fortran, C, or C++.
> > My question is... having a choice, is any one language better in any > > way over the others? I might be asking 'better' in terms of 'ease of > > use', 'ease of learning', or 'difficult to learn but more powerful/ > > useful once learned', or 'less likely to become obsolete in the next > > 20 yrs', etc...
> > So what do you folks think? What is the best language for a beginning > > student to choose, and what are the some of the reasons that you think > > so? I might post this question in a programming group as well. > > thanks
> None of these languages is likely to become obsolete in 20 years. > Beyond that, "better language" is pretty much subjective. > What do you want to accomplish?... > ...get a programming job: C++ > ...satisfy a curriculum requirement as easily as possible: Fortran > ...get a solid foundation in programming concepts: C > That's just my opinion. > -- > John Forkosh ( mailto: j...@f.com where j=john and f=forkosh )
C has been obsolete for 20 years but it is still probably the most common language used in industry, especially behind the doors.
Pubkeybreaker <pubkeybrea...@aol.com> writes: > On Jun 17, 7:11 am, David C. Ullrich <dullr...@sprynet.com> wrote: >> On Mon, 16 Jun 2008 19:51:31 -0400, Joshua Cranmer
>> >Python, ruby, perl, etc. - these are your newer languages, which tend to >> >have more cult-ish proponents. I would stay away from these, as they are >> >your scripting languages, and less concern themselves with mathematics work.
>> You know nothing whatever about Python. (Or maybe you're >> confusing mathemtatics with numerical computation.) I do >> abstract mathematical things in Python all the time, very >> easily.
>> An example of something that it seems to me would be >> much more difficult in the languages you recommend >> for mathematical work: I have a Sqrt function such that >> Sqrt(5) is _exactly_ the square root of 5. Exactly, >> not a numeric approximation like sqrt(5).
>> >My recommendation is to pick up Fortran, C, or C++, with no real >> >preference between them. All of these have vibrant communities and are >> >so widely used that the largest mathematics packages (e.g., lapack) will >> >be accessible from them. And don't worry about them dying away; they've >> >been here and heavily used for several decades, and still will be used >> >through your working career.
>> >> I might post this question in a programming group as well.
>> >This is not a good question for comp.lang.*, since it tends to invite >> >flame wars. The (good) advice you will get will most likely amount to >> >the following: "Pick a language that suits you well and stick to it."
>> David C. Ullrich
> MIT teaches Scheme to its incoming freshmen. With good reason.
At least 2 good reasons. Sussman, and Steele being 2, of course.
Phil -- Dear aunt, let's set so double the killer delete select all. -- Microsoft voice recognition live demonstration
> Pubkeybreaker <pubkeybrea...@aol.com> writes: > > On Jun 17, 7:11 am, David C. Ullrich <dullr...@sprynet.com> wrote: > >> On Mon, 16 Jun 2008 19:51:31 -0400, Joshua Cranmer
> >> >Python, ruby, perl, etc. - these are your newer languages, which tend to > >> >have more cult-ish proponents. I would stay away from these, as they are > >> >your scripting languages, and less concern themselves with mathematics work.
> >> You know nothing whatever about Python. (Or maybe you're > >> confusing mathemtatics with numerical computation.) I do > >> abstract mathematical things in Python all the time, very > >> easily.
> >> An example of something that it seems to me would be > >> much more difficult in the languages you recommend > >> for mathematical work: I have a Sqrt function such that > >> Sqrt(5) is _exactly_ the square root of 5. Exactly, > >> not a numeric approximation like sqrt(5).
> >> >My recommendation is to pick up Fortran, C, or C++, with no real > >> >preference between them. All of these have vibrant communities and are > >> >so widely used that the largest mathematics packages (e.g., lapack) will > >> >be accessible from them. And don't worry about them dying away; they've > >> >been here and heavily used for several decades, and still will be used > >> >through your working career.
> >> >> I might post this question in a programming group as well.
> >> >This is not a good question for comp.lang.*, since it tends to invite > >> >flame wars. The (good) advice you will get will most likely amount to > >> >the following: "Pick a language that suits you well and stick to it."
> >> David C. Ullrich
> > MIT teaches Scheme to its incoming freshmen. With good reason.
> At least 2 good reasons. Sussman, and Steele being 2, of course.
Why do you think they switched to Python?
Lack of qualified teachers of Scheme?
A desire to see a larger fraction of the students pass the course?
gk...@yahoo.com wrote: > I will be starting at a 4-yr institution for a math degree.
> The school material states that the student should be learning a high- > level computer language such as Fortran, C, or C++.
> My question is... having a choice, is any one language better in any > way over the others? I might be asking 'better' in terms of 'ease of > use', 'ease of learning', or 'difficult to learn but more powerful/ > useful once learned', or 'less likely to become obsolete in the next > 20 yrs', etc...
> So what do you folks think? What is the best language for a beginning > student to choose, and what are the some of the reasons that you think > so?
> I might post this question in a programming group as well.
Learn several. The more you learn, the easier they are. UNIX shell and canonical command set will serve you well. "Read the man pages" as I was counseled. There is a surprisingly powerful set of UNIX utilities. Avoid the c shell. Stay with Bourne shell or bash or Korn shell, all virtually the same these days.
Perl for text formatting and filtering of the classical variety; really a powerful language. Python is highly regarded. Fortran can be a read-only language for a while. You can do almost all the math you need with Maple; expensive unless the institution buys it for you. Learn some assembly language. C is a requirement.
I do not see the point of C++, but it may be forced on you. It is not really an extension of C.
You can ignore this advice and muddle through. You will be better off taking the bull by the horns.
> On Jun 16, 4:12 pm, JohnF <jo...@please.see.sig.for.email.com> wrote: > > gk...@yahoo.com wrote: > > > I will be starting at a 4-yr institution for a math degree. > > > The school material states that the student should be learning > > > a high-level computer language such as Fortran, C, or C++.
> > > My question is... having a choice, is any one language better in any > > > way over the others? I might be asking 'better' in terms of 'ease of > > > use', 'ease of learning', or 'difficult to learn but more powerful/ > > > useful once learned', or 'less likely to become obsolete in the next > > > 20 yrs', etc...
> > > So what do you folks think? What is the best language for a beginning > > > student to choose, and what are the some of the reasons that you think > > > so? I might post this question in a programming group as well. > > > thanks
> > None of these languages is likely to become obsolete in 20 years. > > Beyond that, "better language" is pretty much subjective. > > What do you want to accomplish?... > > ...get a programming job: C++ > > ...satisfy a curriculum requirement as easily as possible: Fortran > > ...get a solid foundation in programming concepts: C > > That's just my opinion. > > -- > > John Forkosh ( mailto: j...@f.com where j=john and f=forkosh )
> C has been obsolete for 20 years but it is still probably the most > common language used in industry, especially behind the doors.
Oh yeah! Well fortran has been obsolete for 30 years. So there.
