Earthquake Research Bulletin Board

There appear to be quite a few researchers around the world who would like to see an expanded version of this board so that they could post their earthquake precursor data and discuss research. And if we can’t get Skywise to develop that expanded board then I will probably try to do that at one of my own Web sites. So far I haven’t done that because I have never had the time to monitor a bulletin board. But before too long I will probably try to do that if necessary rather than see all of those valuable precursor data etc. not get used.

Perl Language

The Perl Newsgroup people just came through with some potentially very valuable news in response to my questions on the board.

Perl has a PDL module that is supposed to provide the language with faster calculations and high level graphics. But when I tried to get the module to run myself there were some linking problems. So I had to ask people about what improvements might result from using the PDL module.

The response that I got is that when the PDL module is used with Perl, the program code that are designed for use with that specific module are converted to optimized C language code when the program compiles. And that would mean that the Perl calculations are then as fast as regular C code calculations and perhaps even as fast as Fortran.

Roger has been testing Fortran routines lately. And they are FAST !!!

So, I am going to start working on trying to get that PDL module to work myself. And if it does as well as what people said then I am going to recommend that other researchers including Roger should probably move to that more advanced Perl version for future programming.

He will undoubtedly say NO. But, if that module makes Perl as fast as Fortran, it has a “sleep” command, and it can do advanced graphics then why stay with Fortran or TrueBasic?

In my opinion Perl is essentially an expanded version of Basic that is designed for lazy and intermediate level programmers such as myself.

Its main limitation in my opinion is a lack of understandable documentation for beginners and intermediate level programmers. I could help fix that with a Web page titled "Perl for Scientists."

You can use GOTO statements and any number of other statements anywhere in the program.

You don’t have to define array sizes anywhere. It automatically resets an array when you tell it to access more values.

Unlike Fortran it actually has two different “sleep” commands that temporarily stop it from using processor time.

The PDL module is supposed to let Perl use arrays that are perhaps 10 times as large as regular Perl.

It can read a keyboard press without your having to press the ENTER key.

It can send information to Windows and active Windows programs as if the information had been typed in on the keyboard etc.

It probably runs on just about every Internet Server.

So, if that PDL does turn out to work as well as it is supposed to, Perl might be an extremely good language for scientists around the world to use.