[R] Fortran vs R

[Thomas Lumley]

On Wed, 23 Sep 2009, Paul Simonin wrote:

> Hello R users,
> I have a basic "computer programing" question. I am a student currently taking 
> a course that uses Fortran as the main programming language, but the 
> instructors are open to students using any language they are familiar with. I 
> have used R previously, and am wondering if there is any benefit to my learning 
> Fortran, or whether I should stick with R for this class. Any advice? Are there 
> clear benefits to using Fortran, or things Fortran can do that R cannot?


There is almost no overlap between programs that can sensibly be written in R and those that can 
sensibly be written in Fortran, and good coding styles in the two languages are very different. For 
these reasons I would take the opportunity to learn Fortran, and hope that the instructor has used 
examples for which Fortran is a sensible choice.

It's a good idea to learn some statically typed, compiled language, partly because you sometimes need 
one and partly for what it teaches you about programming. Even if you don't end up writing Fortran in 
the future, you may well up reading it -- there's lots of numerical code out there (including in R) 
written in Fortran.


      -thomas

Thomas Lumley			Assoc. Professor, Biostatistics
tlumley at u.washington.edu	University of Washington, Seattle