Re: Checking GSL for Spectroscopy

[Fritz Sonnichsen]

Thanks Mark--sorry about the slip of semantics on my part--I do indeed
understand that GSL is a set or routines--and not a language-- which is
exactly what I like about it. And as such it favours C. Fortunately myself
and most of the people I work with share the same historic understanding of
why C is useful and superb for scientific use.

cheers
Fritz

On Tue, Mar 16, 2021 at 3:41 PM Mark Galassi <mark@galassi.org> wrote:

>
> >      I also need to be sure that a language (e.g. GSL) [...]
>
> Like others I'm delighted to hear of your interest in GSL, but I do need
> to point out that GSL is *not* a language -- it's a library of routines
> that can be called from various languages.  The most natural is C, but most
> widely used VHLLs have GSL bindings.
>
> GSL's first release was in 1996, and it continues to have solid use, so
> you don't need to worry about longevity there.  And the longevity of C code
> is extreme: the C standards committee is very careful about not disrupting
> the possible use of old code.  As an example, I recently rebuilt GSL code
> from 20 years ago and it required almost no effort.
>