Re: C, MathLink or Java, J/Link
- To: mathgroup at smc.vnet.net
- Subject: [mg28271] Re: C, MathLink or Java, J/Link
- From: Jens-Peer Kuska <kuska at informatik.uni-leipzig.de>
- Date: Sat, 7 Apr 2001 03:44:29 -0400 (EDT)
- Organization: Universitaet Leipzig
- References: <9ajnpm$sfg@smc.vnet.net>
- Sender: owner-wri-mathgroup at wolfram.com
Hi Ted, *no* program will be "portable" and usefull in 8 years (TeX perhaps, but not with out the TeX comunity) if the developer dont't continue it's development. Even MathLink has got some remarkable changes (strings characters, unicode) in the last years. But you are rigth. The well accepted ANSI standard is a strong plus to vote for C. But for C++ the situation is different, the standard is only tow or three years old and the usage of C++ stuff like templates cause trouble even when you switch to a different compiler on the same machine. For the next years, the prospects are even worse. Because PC's will get a 64 bit CPU and this may cause several troubles if the program is not well designed. The size of int, short, long is still a great source of unexpected results in an ANSI-C program. Regards Jens "Ersek, Ted R" wrote: > > Todd Gayley recently wrote: > .... my opinion is that for people who are not overwhelmingly concerned > about performance, Java is the best choice for programs that call, or are > called by, Mathematica .... > > ------------------- > but I think for some of us there is another factor to consider besides > performance and convenience. > > The program I am working on can be fully portable if I write it in C or > Java, and I plan to post the source code on MathSource when it's done. I > hope my program will be just as portable for the next 7 years or more. > Since C is very well established, I suspect both MathLink and most C/C++ > compilers will be compatible with ANSI C for a long time to come. However, > it seems Java and J/Link are not fully mature. How confident can I be that > my Java source code will work with a 2008 version of Java? We don't yet > have ANSI Java, right? Because of this concern I think I will write my > program in C and use MathLink even though it's less convenient. > > ----------------- > Ted Ersek > > Mathematica tips, tricks have moved to > http://www.verbeia.com/mathematica/tips/Tricks.html