Should Undergraduates Be Taught Fortran?

Mike Croucher writes "Despite the fact that it is over 40 years old, Fortran is still taught at many Universities to students of Physics, Chemistry, Engineering and more as their first ever formal introduction to programming. According to this article that shouldn't be happening anymore, since there are much better alternatives, such as Python, that would serve a physical science undergraduate much better. There may come a time in some researchers' lives where they need Fortran, but this time isn't in 'programming for chemists 101.' What do people in the Slashdot community think?"

Comments

Re:University != Trade school

[dkh2]

Dinsdale says "mod this guy up!" He makes some very good points re: good/bad choices for teaching programming principles vs legacy/forward interactions.

There are a lot of places where scripting languages (Perl, PHP, Javascript) are appropriate and useful but they miss the mark for teaching a lot of programming methodology. Object languages (Java, C++) are better because they expose more of what as likely to be seen in the actual workplace but, for teaching core, base level, algorithm development and optimization a student should be exposed to at least 2, preferably 3 languages. One procedural like Pascal or Modula 2, one Object based like C++ or Java, and others as the need demands.