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Is FORTRAN Still Kicking?

Posted by Cliff on from the the-langage-that-never-dies dept.

Algorithm wrangler queries: "I'm beginning to wonder if I should invest the time in learning FORTRAN. Although it is, arcane it seems to be the best tool when it comes to demanding optimization tasks and heavy computations. C/C++ does not cut it for me - it is simply too easy to make mistakes and I find myself using half of my time hunting bugs unrelated to the problem at hand. Additionally, although tools like Matlab exist they don't provide the power that justify the huge price tag they carry. I find any script based language (Matlab, Numeric Python, Scilab) to be inadequate as soon as it is necessary to use loops to describe a problem and using such tools for recursive systems can be a real pain. As another data-point, the Netlib repository seems to be very FORTRAN oriented, and it is a true gold mine when it comes to free routines for solving almost any computing task. What bothers me though is that FORTRAN code is really ugly and the language lacks almost any modern day language feature (I know about Fortran 90 but it is not much nicer than F77, and no one seems to use it). Can it really be true that the best tool we have for heavy duty computing is a 25 year old language, or have you found anything better - free or non-free?"

6 of 685 comments (clear)

  1. Too easy to make mistakes? by Tyball · · Score: 0, Flamebait

    Learn C/C++ better. Stupid mistakes are not an inherent property of C.

  2. FORTRAN is great by SpanishInquisition · · Score: 0, Flamebait

    if you want to multiply two numbers a million time, for everything else C still rules.

    --
    Je t'aime Stéphanie
  3. How can something be dying? by jsonmez · · Score: 0, Flamebait

    When it's already dead? Use C++. C++ can do everything fortran can do and more. If you are tracking bugs in C++, learn C++ better.

  4. Stupid question by Laplace · · Score: 1, Flamebait

    Yes: Fortran is still alive (the FORTRAN spelling has been depricated). There is a shitload of stuff for Fortran 77. Fortran 95 kicks some ass, and has a lot of features seen in modern languages.

    Shit, what a stupid question.

    --
    The middle mind speaks!
  5. The hell with Fortran by Cro+Magnon · · Score: 0, Flamebait

    COBOL rulez!

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    Slow down, cowboy! It has been 4 hours since you last posted. You must wait another few hours.
  6. Re:It's still kicking... by Ooblek · · Score: 1, Flamebait
    I believe that the GNU and at least a few commercial fortran compilers translate the code to C before it compiles. Kind of hard to outperform C when it is C.

    I suggest reading coding standards books on C/C++ so that you avoid these "unrelated" bugs by design. I can only assume unrelated means things like compiler/dev environment/linking/syntax/semantics problems. Programming was never meant to be easy, no matter what language you use. You can gain enough experience in a language to not have to deal with the type of issues that the poster was talking about.