nytimes.com— John W. Backus assembled and led the I.B.M. team that created Fortran, the first widely used programming language.
Mar 20, 2007View in Crawl 4
The real reason FORTRAN has lasted this long is simply because so much was already written in it. I'm a physics PhD student, and many of my coleagues can't stand FORTRAN, yet they still use it for their research work. The reason they give is that all of their existing programs from the older professors is in FORTRAN and it would simply be too much work to re-write everything in a modern language to be worth the effort. Since the old-guard is unwilling to let the language die, many of the younger scientists and engineers are being force-fed it to keep it alive.While I respect everything that FORTRAN has contributed to programming languages in the past, there are significantly better alternatives for anything that someone would use it for.
On most high-end supercomputers used for research, you have only Fortran and C compilers. The C ones are usually just thrown there, and the Fortran ones are really, really optimised. Even poor ol' g77 produces some very fast executables, if your code is basically FP operations.Fortran is used by inertia, yes; but also because of the wonderful compilers that make it fast where it needs to be: FP.
Hmm. Sounds like we need a new language called FWEB. While whatever is holding back scientists today with FORTRAN might still apply, FWEB would be a good upgrade.No, I'm not (just) being a dumbass - WEB was a language that Donald E. Knuth designed so he could write TeX. It generated compilable Pascal, but is far easier to maintain and read because of the (still) state-of-the-art documentation system. A later iteration called CWEB (which Knuth also worked on and still uses) used C instead of Pascal. It is, in fact, DEK's favorite language (which says a lot).I would imagine porting existing FORTRAN code with a future FWEB specification would be maybe a little more difficult than getting a C program to run in a C++ environment... if that says anything.<a class="user" href="http://www-cs-faculty.stanford.edu/~knuth/cweb.html">http://www-cs-faculty.stanford.edu/~knuth/cweb.html</a><a class="user" href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Literate_programming">http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Literate_programming</a> - WEB was the first "literate" programming language
Wow, I never knew. The first language I ever learned (1977) was FORTRAN on a Cromemco minicomputer. Later on in college I wrote FORTRAN on punch cards. Those were the days, when men were men, code was hard and screens were green (if you even had a screen)...
antechronosMar 20, 2007
Gah! Digg ate my angle brackets, which somehow prevented me from editing the post, as well. *sigh* I'll try again.
neocortexMar 20, 2007
The real reason FORTRAN has lasted this long is simply because so much was already written in it. I'm a physics PhD student, and many of my coleagues can't stand FORTRAN, yet they still use it for their research work. The reason they give is that all of their existing programs from the older professors is in FORTRAN and it would simply be too much work to re-write everything in a modern language to be worth the effort. Since the old-guard is unwilling to let the language die, many of the younger scientists and engineers are being force-fed it to keep it alive.While I respect everything that FORTRAN has contributed to programming languages in the past, there are significantly better alternatives for anything that someone would use it for.
aliengoodsMar 20, 2007
WAIT! It goes in 3's. Here's hoping...Bill Gates...Steve Ballmer.../*crosses fingers*/
stevemaxMar 20, 2007
On most high-end supercomputers used for research, you have only Fortran and C compilers. The C ones are usually just thrown there, and the Fortran ones are really, really optimised. Even poor ol' g77 produces some very fast executables, if your code is basically FP operations.Fortran is used by inertia, yes; but also because of the wonderful compilers that make it fast where it needs to be: FP.
gameforgeMar 20, 2007
Hmm. Sounds like we need a new language called FWEB. While whatever is holding back scientists today with FORTRAN might still apply, FWEB would be a good upgrade.No, I'm not (just) being a dumbass - WEB was a language that Donald E. Knuth designed so he could write TeX. It generated compilable Pascal, but is far easier to maintain and read because of the (still) state-of-the-art documentation system. A later iteration called CWEB (which Knuth also worked on and still uses) used C instead of Pascal. It is, in fact, DEK's favorite language (which says a lot).I would imagine porting existing FORTRAN code with a future FWEB specification would be maybe a little more difficult than getting a C program to run in a C++ environment... if that says anything.<a class="user" href="http://www-cs-faculty.stanford.edu/~knuth/cweb.html">http://www-cs-faculty.stanford.edu/~knuth/cweb.html</a><a class="user" href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Literate_programming">http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Literate_programming</a> - WEB was the first "literate" programming language
betonaMar 20, 2007
Wow, I never knew. The first language I ever learned (1977) was FORTRAN on a Cromemco minicomputer. Later on in college I wrote FORTRAN on punch cards. Those were the days, when men were men, code was hard and screens were green (if you even had a screen)...
hamsoloMar 20, 2007
I use FORTRAN all the time in my Actuarial computing needs. It handles simple calculations better than most modern languages.
pledomobilMay 15, 2007
Perfect! Not for me, definitely
mhmdkhamisOct 11, 2007
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he was a pimp <a class="user" href="http://www.2s2s.com/sit.html">http://www.2s2s.com/sit.html</a>
marx187Oct 19, 2007
This guy was a true pioneer in early computing languages, let show him some respect RIP !<a class="user" href="http://www.layoutgraphics.net">http://www.layoutgraphics.net</a> - <a class="user" href="http://www.oyuncan.com">http://www.oyuncan.com</a> - <a class="user" href="http://www.uploadp.com">http://www.uploadp.com</a> - <a class="user" href="http://www.online-garden-centre.com">http://www.online-garden-centre.com</a> - <a class="user" href="http://www.proxyguy.com">http://www.proxyguy.com</a>
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