Structured Fortran - was Re: Self modifying code, lambda calculus

[Jay Jaeger]

On 9/22/2015 11:22 PM, ben wrote:
> On 9/22/2015 10:08 PM, Jay Jaeger wrote:
>> On 9/22/2015 10:44 PM, ben wrote:
>>
>>> On 9/22/2015 7:31 PM, Jon Elson wrote:
>>>
>>>> So, B was never actually a FORTRAN compiler, just Ken started thinking
>>>> about FORTRAN grammar and within one DAY took off in a different
>>>> direction.   By that time (1969 or so) FORTRAN was a really old
>>>> language, and considered way out of date by most universities' Comp Sci
>>>> departments.
>>>
>>> Until you needed compled err complex numbers.
>>>
>>> Ben.
>>>
>>
>> Huh?
> 
> Often real problems need complex numbers. Comp Sci often ignores real life
> problems. Ben.
> 
> 
> 

What confused me is what was meant by "compled err".  Say what?   Huh?

Anyway, I addressed in another response just how trivial it would be to
define a complex number as a C "struct", and write a set of routines for
the necessary manipulations (arithmetic operators,
input/output/transformation from and to strings, etc).  In C++ one could
even overload the normal arithmetic operators for that.  Not an issue at
all.

Indeed a definition and set of routines to do the computational part of
a "complex" data type exists in the book "Numerical Recipes in C".
Takes all of 3 pages.

JRJ