Thanks Don, I've read through noth of Oualline's books, but had forgotten about them. Thanks for the reminder! On a more personal note, I learned C in a week-long seminar at the AHPCRC about a decade ago. As a computational physicist, I've always felt a little odd in having only one formal programming class (in fortran, taught by an engineer, way back in the 1990's)
Nathan On Nov 20, 2007 1:26 PM, Don R. Baker <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > Hi Nathan, > > I think that you can switch to teaching C without too much pain and > effort. Although I haven't taught C in a course, I learned it from > Steve Oualline's book on C published by O'Reilly press and lots of > practice. Perhaps more importantly, I had an undergraduate in my lab > learn it from the same book without much trouble. As I remember > Qualline has a very nice introduction to pointers, but you don't really > need them for many programs. Although I appreciate the utility of > pointers I find that I rarely use them for my Monte Carlo simulations > (but this is admittedly because I am no expert in programming). > > I should also point out that Steve Qualline has a C++ book that is very > similar to the C book and also might work for you. > > I hope this helps, > > Don > > > > p.s. The books: > Practical C Programming, Third Edition by Steve Oualline > Paperback - REVISED > Practical C++ Programming by Steve Oualline > > On Tue, 2007-20-11 at 12:33 -0600, Nathan Moore wrote: > > I regularly teach a college course in a physics department that deals > > with scientific computation. After students take the course, I expect > > that they'll be able to write simple "c-tran" style programs for data > > analysis, write basic MD or MC simulations, and be fairly fluent in > > Mathematica. > > > > In the past, I figured that with the breadth of topics included in the > > course, Fortran, specifically the basic, simple, and reliable F77 > > dialect (w/ some F90 conveniences) was the language to teach. In my > > own head, my rationale was: > > - Most students can grasp the basics of fortran in half a day's > > reading, so I can spend more class time on science and math (probably > > because there are no pointers - I think that C is much harder for > > students and sometimes "seems" less like mathematical syntax than > > f77) > > - "Classical Fortran" is a great text and is readable for self-study > > (I know of no such text for C/C++) > > - several free compilers exist (g95 seems ok so far) > > - Netlib, lapack, and numerical recipes cover the math library > > adequately > > - F77 is compiled (Perl/python are too slow for an MD/MC sim and I > > figure that students should know at least on compiled language and one > > scripting language to be competent) > > - MPI is a relatively basic addition to the language (again, no > > pointers, allocation, or addressing) > > > > After reflection though, I've started to wonder about the wisdom of my > > choice. Specifically (like RGB), I love the GSL library, and > > extending GSL to fortran in an intro class is non-trivial. > > Additionally, most vendors supply "fast" hardware libraries in C (I > > may be ignorant, but if a student wants to call an AMD ACML fast-math > > function( http://developer.amd.com/acml.jsp), or write a linear > > algebra function to run on a graphics > > card(http://developer.nvidia.com/object/cuda.html), the vendors seem > > to assume that you'll write the code in C). > > > > Also, and more relevant, I assume that most employers word-associate > > "Fortran is to backwards as C is to competence". > > > > So, I'm thinking about reworking the class to favor C, and fearing 3 > > weeks of pointer and addressing hell. For those of you who teach > > scientific computation (and also those of you who hire undergrads), > > I'd be grateful for your thoughts. One specific question I have is > > what text covers scientific programming and touches on MPI using the C > > language. > > > > regards, > > > > Nathan Moore > > > > > > -- > > - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - > > Nathan Moore > > Assistant Professor, Physics > > Winona State University > > AIM: nmoorewsu > > - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - > > _______________________________________________ > > Beowulf mailing list, [email protected] > > To change your subscription (digest mode or unsubscribe) visit > http://www.beowulf.org/mailman/listinfo/beowulf > -- > Melting rocks today for a better tomorrow . . . > Don R. Baker, Professor of Geochemistry, Earth and Planetary Sciences, > McGill University, Montreal, QC CANADA phone: 1-514-398-7485 > > -- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - Nathan Moore Assistant Professor, Physics Winona State University AIM: nmoorewsu - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
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