C vs Fortran

Estaba yo buscando un mail y me encontré este que me mandó hace tiempo DeepBlue sobre discusiones sobre C y Fortran.
El día que lo leí no sabía muy bien el significado del 42 por lo que ahora me hace mas gracia todavía.
( Las conversaciones están sacadas de la lista de Beowulf del 20 de Agosto del año pasado )


>Sure, after enough people abandoned fortran for the work of the devil that it is and embraced the true and pure light of C (why hide the religious nature of this discussion:-), its dark masters began to embrace the forms and rituals of the true faith in order to win souls back to its satanic creed. Surely you've noticed that "fortran" is an anagram of "rant for" (or "nor fart" or "torn rat"), which must mean something. The latter especially. Who would use a language that has a hidden message encouraging the torturing of ugly animals? Even animals associated with dark rites and witchcraft...


> Well actually FORTRAN 1 was invented by Da Vinci and not as you assume the work of the devil. It was kept a secret until the first digital computer was built with steam engines in the basement of a monastery in northern France in 1872. Outlawed by the local clergy, the "proof calculator" (or PC) sat there until a local loom operator noticed that the dress in the Mona Lisa (the neck line) had a binary code that would run on the machine.
> It was never noticed before because it was written backward in Da Vinci style. The program was a "Do Loop" that went on forever (at least it has not completed yet, the steam engines were converted from wood to coal in 1932) There was rumored to be a secret society that wanted to keep FORTRAN a oout of the hands of the masses because they new that if word got out about FORTRAN, someone would surely write a BASIC interpreter for small computers made by MSTI in New Mexico. Furthermore, based on a modern reinterpretation of the binary code on the Mona Lisa's dress (after dry cleaning) a alternate sequence of ones and zeros was tried and the program reported a result of "42" and halted immediately.
>
> In order to keep people from learning about these results, the secret society reportedly put out a fake theory by someone named Kurt Godel in 1931 implying that mathematics was at its core stupid and therefore useless. While many were not convinced, another fake theory was put forth by Alan Turing that said, you can't stop computers unless you pull the plug. Which is what many people believe Da Vinci was trying to say. Although the "42" result is curious to say the least.
>


>Oh, you'll regret this, yes you will. Fortran based on "real mathematics", harruummph. Right, and in real mathematics ALL physical quanties that begin with the letters I through N are integers, right? And equations, they are ALWAYS written only in between columns 7 and 72...in capital letters. I keep forgetting.
>
>
without wanting to exacerbate the holy war, do you actually know anybody
that doesn't use 'intrinsic none' (given the choice and/or time in the
case of legacies) and a compiler that supports free format? an
imposition of the choice of language can cause you to be relieved, or to
swear like a fishmonger's wife - whatever the language, imho. the
latter's less likely in C, admittedly. many scientists are going over to
c++ these days, though (the cern suite's largely in c++ these days, right?)



La intensidad de estos últimos días ;D no me ha dejado mucho tiempo para navegar asi que el link de hoy también es algo rescatado de hace algunos días: hielo en un cráter marciano. No dejeis de ver la fotografía maximizada.