Fortran vs Spreadsheets

[Qshake]

All,

I'm an old programmer (Fortran, BASIC) who is finding some time to re-introduce myself to these languages and some new ones like C and C++.

I'm a structural engineer by trade and so most of my work in the past few years (when Gatesware came out) has been focused on the PC and spreadsheets.

My question is what benefits are there to Fortran, C and C++ that really make them shine over the spreadsheet.

I appreciate all answers and don't really wish to get into a war over the method. I'm just looking for insight.

Thanks.

 

[xwb]

Basically speed. If you have a complex iterative calculation, the programming languages will give you a solution more quickly. If, however, it is just a simple set of repeated calculations, then spreadsheets are faster.

Some spreadsheets like Excel offer a macro facility - you can define your own routines in VBA (Visual Basic for Applications), do the complicated bits there and put the results on the spreadsheet.

Many of them have graphing facilities too - not so easy in the programming languages as they are not standard.

It is just horses for courses. You can use a pair of pliers to drive a nail in but if there are lots of nails, you'd be better off getting a hammer.