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 language, and considered way out of date by most universities' Comp Sci 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
