Re: floating-point efficiency: Lisp vs. Fortran (FYI)

[alms@cambridge.apple.com (Andrew LM Shalit)]

At  6:41 PM 10/7/92 +0100, hmadorf@eso.org wrote:
>
>Lisp for scientific computing
>-----------------------------
>I am delighted about the discussion on Lisp for scientific
>computation (which is almost invariably taken to be numeric). Right
>now the discussion centres on whether Dylan should incorporate
>enough to make it an interesting language to those engaged in 
>scientific computing (as I am).
>
>I am currently trying to influence the attitude of my colleagues 
>(working mainly in astronomy), and make them aware of the advantages 
>of Lisp vs. Fortran or even C, but I need convincing arguments not
>strong convictions!

I think the best argument for the use of an OODL in scientific
computing is that it gives you an interactive environment for
modeling your problem domain.  Once you've created OODL objects
which correspond to your real-world objects, you can do anything
you want with them, very quickly.  You can easily build additional
tools for manipulating the objects, you can easily show different
views of the object, etc.

This is hard to describe, but it's very noticeable when you use
an OODL.

  -Andrew