Slashdot Mirror

← Back to Stories (view on slashdot.org)

How Not to Write FORTRAN in Any Language

Posted by michael on from the snap! dept.

gManZboy writes "In an article that's sure to p/o Fortran programmers, Donn Seeley has assembled a rant that posits there are characteristics of good coding that transcend all programming languages, except Fortran. Seriously though, his point is that early FORTRAN made coding ugly. Thus the joke 'Don't write FORTRAN' was applied to anyone with ugly code. Though Fortran has in recent years overcome its early challenges, the point -- 'Don't write FORTRAN' (i.e. ugly stuff) -- still applies."

2 of 502 comments (clear)

  1. Excellent points by YankeeInExile · · Score: 5, Insightful

    While I take issue with his blantant anti-FORTRANism, he makes the excellent point: Write good code in whatever language you write. Just because you can write Perl that looks like line noise does not meen you must.

    --
    How does the Slashdot Effect happen given that no slashdotters ever RTFA?
  2. Article format by hobit · · Score: 5, Insightful
    It would be nice



    if the article weren't broken



    into such small pieces.



    That way I could



    print it for my students.

    Sort of amusing for an article that discusses using white space in a good way.

    --
    As Nietsche famously said, "If you stare too long into the Abyss, 1d4 Tanar'ri of random type will attack you."