Andrea Taverna <a.tavs.NOSPAM@libero.it.invalid> writes:

> Hi folks!
>
> I'm a CS student and I often need to write number-crunching code
> dealing with combinatorial optimization problems.
> What I do usually is implementing ad-hoc algorithms and testing their
> performance against other previously-known solutions, including
> general solvers.
>
> In the past I used C, but now I have decided to change language.
> I'm looking for a "better" one.
>
> Here follow the features it should have, ranked approximately by relevance:
>
> 0) open-source support and an alive community
> 1) directly compiled to efficient code
> 2) statically typed and object-oriented, better if multi-paradigm
> 3) general-purpose libraries (possibly standardized, either by
> standard or de facto), including containers and some math
> abstractions.
> 4) garbage collected. As an alternative, provide memory management
> policies via libraries (e.g. memory pools and such)
> 5) optional run-time checks and some kind of control over compilation
> and low-level issues
> 6) "relatively simple and consistent"

Have a look at Haskell.


> So I have considered these alternatives: FreePascal, Eiffel, Ada and
> Modula-3.

Of those, I'd use Modula-3.
(you may also consider: Objective Modula-2)


--
__Pascal Bourguignon__