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fortran or c

Name: Anonymous 2012-12-23 2:33

Subject is the TL;DR question, so let me give a bit of context.

Most of my life has been uninteresting and besides being a "freak" in middleschool for 2 months and then dropping the act nothing else comes to mind. I used to drink heavily but never became an alcoholic, I used to do drugs but never became an addict, I had a gf and so on. Then I moved to another country because I had the chance to do so and study university abroad.

Here I somehow became more "myself" since I didn't have to deal with expectations and premade images people had of me among many other things. I became truer to myself one could say... or that I simply was always like this but didn't know since until now I rarely had time for myself, alone.

Living alone in a far a way place I discovered how much empathy I lack... I learned to miss my parents and some friends but that's pretty much it. Growing up I always had some place in the internet where I could rant... I can still hear the modem over the phone, connecting slowly, so I had to reconnect until it was fine and I could talk to some motherfuckers online.

Needless to say, having two personas or more like most people became the norm... one that enjoyed all the things I knew I did, and one that acted like a normal person. Deviant shit aside, I used to hang out in forums, irc, and similar community driven places... but now I feel also disconnected and more lonely...

/b/ now has a pattern and no discussion since a long time. Old irc channels have dies, dried up, now I only frequent those where there's something relevant like scanlation. /a/ is kinda the same in the general sense, but it's population is younger and there's not much to say for me now unless it's night-time discussion... reddit in the beginning was some sort of /g/ and had small talk about various shit but mostly had the feel of a community of programmers or in the know... needless to say I haven't touched it since 3 or 2 years...

Now I feel alone, going to uni and studying physics, watching anime or reading normal lit during my free time. Is there a place where there's mostly small talk about anything, but the community clearly has a liking of programming, "nerd" hobbies of any kind (trains, electronic projects, aviation, anime, etc.)? I feel a bit out of place... maybe this feeling will go away in some days.

Anyway, so I already took some courses in C and Haskell, but now that I'm studying physics (changed courses, lost credits) I've been wondering... would it make sense to do a course in Fortran to get credits plus the experience, or should I simply repeat a course in C to get the credits easily? (since I could learn Fortran later on my own, maybe)

Name: Anonymous 2012-12-23 2:37

Scientists don't need to know neither C nor Fortran in 2013. You should master MATLAB and Mathematica, know Python and another easy scripting language, and that's it. Anything further is a waste of time because you'll never use it as a scientist.

Name: JAF !!f1jtT7PZ351fLtd 2012-12-23 2:39

Idk OP, but happy holidays.

Name: Anonymous 2012-12-23 2:44

>>3
Shalom!

Name: JAF !!f1jtT7PZ351fLtd 2012-12-23 2:51

>>4
Hi.

Name: Anonymous 2012-12-23 3:04

>>2
Hmmm... yes it seems that way. But it seems it's still being used for fluid dynamics and numeric, which I'll also probably take either next or over next year. I've been constantly using MATLAB and CAD programs and will continue to do so.

I never thought about Phython but now that I think about it, it sounds practical.

H-happy holidays y-you too guys.

Name: Anonymous 2012-12-23 3:06

I'd get the easy credits doing C because it's easy to study Fortran on my own.

Name: JAF !!f1jtT7PZ351fLtd 2012-12-23 3:26

>>7
You are a cool person.
Stay awesome.

Name: JAF !!f1jtT7PZ351fLtd 2012-12-23 3:31

>>6
Also, Python is very good for solidifying your ideas.

Name: Anonymous 2012-12-23 4:10

>>1
Rather than spending time with like-minded individuals, have you considered changing your mentality to socialize like the rest of society? In my past, I was a loner and was scared of being with people until I decided that I would learn the art of communication so I went to Google search and studied the lessons using search terms like "art of communication", "how to talk to people", and "communicating with body language". I practised over a number of years and spent effort analysing myself and people's reactions to me.

Name: Anonymous 2012-12-23 4:39

List of languages you may want to learn:

Haskell — good for testing and proving formulas.  A physicist grad student colleague of mine learned Haskell just to do some physical modelling (not the actual heavy computation part, but a sanity test of sorts).  He was especially fond of the Dimensional package.

Fortran — ugly a hell, but you will see it often in physics and math papers.  Really heavy computation projects are often written in Fortran, yes, even in 2012.  It is not that different from C, just another syntax and a few different rules.  Difficulty of learning a new syntax is highly overestimated.

R — to play with statistics.  Very easy to pick up if you know the relevant math.  Quite popular and you will see it in papers which have something to do with statistics.

MATLAB or Octave — for numeric computations, very popular.

Mathematica or Maxima — for analytical computations, very popular.

Python — some «scientists» use it to express their «ideas».  Some of their «ideas» may be useful.  Plus it is good for simple automation like mass-scraping BibTeX entries off online catalogues.

Name: Anonymous 2012-12-23 4:47

>>10

I have no problems socializing, in fact it's quite easy for me to do. It's just that I derive no pleasure from doing so... I already have my friends back home, and here I like being alone due to many factors like lack of time, energy, etc. (Plus since I broke up I'm taking a break from a lot of things I used to do like the rest of society, I'm using all my time studying and relaxing in my own way)

Like minded people in the internet is like having good friends there, without time constraints, social obligations and so on.

Name: Anonymous 2012-12-23 4:56

>>11
I did haskell one semester, seemed like the new cool guy in the block but at the time I had no idea how to implement it to future work (not even now to be honest, I guess later on)

Fortran is "you have to do it bitch" implied for physicists. Yes it's ugly, but the way it's written allows for heavy shit like you said. The reason why I question actually learning it is "outside academia, does it have a place in the workplace of an engineer/scientist?" I have no idea, haven't asked around, I should.

MATLAB is part of my daily life in the uni.

Mathematica, haven't used it so far, probably will soon.

Python, I'm considering it since this isn't the first time I've seen it mentioned as a very practical language and widespread.

Name: Anonymous 2012-12-23 5:42

>>13
learning it is "outside academia, does it have a place in the workplace of an engineer/scientist?
Well, I have heard about non-academic economists using it for their moneys clairvoyance shenanigans.

And Python is the home repair guy, not really a specialist in anything other than being universal.  It is handy for thousands of different small tasks you will encounter, and thus very worth getting proficient at, much like Perl was before Python.  You will not do web scraping in MATLAB, neither you will generate a web interface with pretty graphs in Fortran.  Python is great for such tasks.  Some people still prefer Perl, but in my (a Perl veteran's) opinion it is no longer useful to spend time on.  If you have a sizeable Perl codebase, make sure you have a Perl guy on your team who can explain what does what to everyone else, and possibly port it to Python and/or raw POSIX shell.

Name: Anonymous 2012-12-23 6:00

bc/dc, anyone?

Name: Anonymous 2012-12-23 7:16

>>15
bc is the ed of calculators.

Name: Anonymous 2012-12-23 10:45

>>14
I've heard of both economists and physicists using Python, although I am not a fan myself.

OP, I know what you're talking about with socialising.  I can make new friends but there's so much more interesting stuff to do.  I have left my homeland too.  I don't know of anywhere online that isn't eternal Septembered all to shit, though.  /prog/ is about it for interesting stuff and we have a serious troll infestation.  Maybe we are a silent majority that can wash out the Ahmeds with a load of interesting non troll posts.  Sorry, O.T.

Name: Anonymous 2012-12-23 11:47

>>16
bc is the Ruby of calculators because it's slow as fuck.

Name: Anonymous 2012-12-23 14:13

I run HP-42S on my iPod.

Name: JAF !!f1jtT7PZ351fLtd 2012-12-23 18:18

Today I tried Fortran,
Today I changed my pants,
Twice,
Try Fortran.

Name: Anonymous 2012-12-23 18:27

I use Python to mass download pron, haven't found another usage for it, I dunno why a 'scientist' would need it.

Name: Anonymous 2012-12-23 19:31

>>21
For the very same reason. It can get boring in a lab.

Name: Anonymous 2012-12-24 1:25

>>22
BORING MY ANUS

Name: Anonymous 2012-12-24 4:00

Modern Fortran is far more advanced than it was in the 60's and 70's.

Name: Anonymous 2012-12-24 11:03

>>24
no shit ``sherlock''

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