Re: Blog: Is Fortran better than Python for teaching the basics of numerical linear algebra?

On 07/09/2026 2:47 PM, Lawrence D’Oliveiro wrote:
> On Mon, 7 Sep 2026 04:41:38 -0000 (UTC), Steven G. Kargl wrote:
> 
>> On Sun, 6 Sep 2026 22:00:39 -0000 (UTC), Lawrence D’Oliveiro wrote:
>>
>>> On Sun, 6 Sep 2026 15:32:53 -0000 (UTC), Thomas Koenig wrote:
>>>
>>>> Fortran 77 makes little sense, modern Fortran variants (Fortran
>>>> 90+) are available with free compilers and offer much more comfort
>>>> and safety.
>>>
>>> Python offers custom operator overloads, so you can write actual
>>> operator expressions for addition, dot product etc -- closer in
>>> appearance to the actual maths -- instead of parenthesis-ridden
>>> function calls.
>>
>> Can we assume you know little to nothing about modern Fortran? One
>> can write custom operator overloads in Fortran.
> 
> Something else I can do in Python is write things that look a lot like
> new custom operators. E.g. a cross product between two 3D vectors
> could be written (with a suitable definition of the “cross” property)
> as
> 
>      v1 .cross* v2
> 
> without unnecessary parentheses.

So?  Hasn't that been available since 1974 in the ML [1] programming
language?  Or was that added for the upgrade in 1997?  I admit I've
only read /The Definition of Standard ML (Revised Edition)/ (1997) and
not the original from 1974.

You're not gaining any /internet points/ by trying to pretend something
was invented by Guido van Rossum!


[1] Unrelated to /machine learning/, it's the /meta language/ of Edin-
burg.
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