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Is GNU g77 Killing Fortran?
goombah99 asks: "I've come to believe that the existence of GNU g77 (and f2c) is holding back Fortran development. You might think that a free-ware compiler would be good for promoting the language. But it's not because the GNU flavor does not implement the de-facto standard DEC extensions to the language that give it dynamic memory allocation, pointers, and data structures. Without these Fortran 77 is indeed barbaric, but with them it is quite pleasant to work with. The problem is everyone writing new code is now afraid to use these commands in because of the desire to have their applications compilable by the teeming masses who may not want to pay $500 to $1000 dollars for a professional Fortran compiler (all of which do implement the DEC extension). F95 is being held back by the same considerations. Do you agree? Does anyone have some library extensions or pre-compilers that provide these capabilities to g77?" Are the DEC extensions so widespread and common that language survival is dependent on their inclusion, as the submitter suggests, in "every professional compiler". Assuming there aren't comparable features already available in g77, are there plans on eventually implementing similar?
(I'd still use C because I've never used Fortran).
Why don't you read the basics of Fortran syntax before you pronounce that judgement? I never said that Fortran was unusable; I said it had major structural problems in the language. It's impossible to write a complex program without using GOTOs, for instance. It's okay for quick 'n dirty, small stuff, but for long-term use it can be a maintenance nightmare.
Man that is sad you mean there are people still programming in fortran? Man and I thought learning ada in college was bad.