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While a lot of Scientific computing is done in FORTRAN, much of the lower-level `plumbing' is written in assembly, C or C++. C isn't an efficient language, C i

While a lot of Scientific computing is done in FORTRAN, much of the lower-level `plumbing' is written in assembly, C or C++. C isn't an efficient language, C is just thin layer on top of assembly. You can write shit code in C, I know that from experience, but you can also write really fast code in C.

exDM69 15y ago
> C isn't an efficient language, C is just thin layer on top of assembly. This is a pretty common fallacy. These days a C compiler does so much magic that calling it sugared assembly doesn't describe it accurately. With a 1970's single pass compiler your argument may have been more true.
- jrockway 15y ago
  Yes, but it would be just as easy to write an "assembly compiler" that did the same optimizations on your program text. C provides a layer above the machine that acts as we imagine a machine to work; the compiler adjusts our expectation to reality. In the end, C has branching and memory access, and that's basically what our computers have too. The rest is details.
  - adgar 15y ago
    > Yes, but it would be just as easy to write an "assembly compiler" that did the same optimizations on your program text. While there are ways to optimize machine code without extra debug information, no, what you've said is not true. It is not nearly as easy to optimize machine code as it is to optimize C.