Slashdot Mirror
Why Scientists Are Still Using FORTRAN in 2014
New submitter InfoJunkie777 (1435969) writes "When you go to any place where 'cutting edge' scientific research is going on, strangely the computer language of choice is FORTRAN, the first computer language commonly used, invented in the 1950s. Meaning FORmula TRANslation, no language since has been able to match its speed. But three new contenders are explored here. Your thoughts?"
At least Slashdot seems to encourage re-use of commonly used responses when a question is asked.
Have gnu, will travel.
I am sticking with Visual Basic 6
Agreed. My thought at reading the summary was "Do older languages have some sort of expiration date I don't know about?" What's odd about it? Also, it's not like the language has been stagnant. English is an old "legacy" human language with lots of cruft and inconsistent rules, but it works well enough for us that it's not worth jumping ship for Esperanto.
That is because you aren't a hipster or fad brogrammer. These idiots probably expect them to be using Node.js or some such bullshit.
...but with much of academic programming there's no rear-end.
I guess that explains why Sir Mix-a-Lot left academia to pursue a career in the popular arts.
Please... it's spelt "c" now.
Dark Reflection
Please... spelt is a grain.
When our name is on the back of your car, we're behind you all the way!
Fortran is a Paper-Handled Plastic Shovel +4 of SCIENCE, forged in the early days when the world was young upon the ancient IBM 704. A keen observer might still find where John Backus himself scrawled "F*@# ASM!" in the crossword puzzle, its margins filled with arcane formulae from which the secrets of missile guidance emerged. It has fought and won many battles as an agent of the Holy Maths against the forces of nature, problems inscrutable, and libelous apocrypha. In its wake are the algorithms and research papers which lay the foundations of our modern tools, many of which are still used behind the scenes today. It is a thing of great purity, not tainted by the crude indelicacies of ui design or text processing; these tasks it leaves to other tools. Numbers go in, solutions come out, transformed by algorithms proven true over so many years.
Do not so lightly cast aside a tool which has proven its worth many times over.
Fortran is 40% QBasic and 60% OMFG ALL CAPS. Ideal for folks who are fundamentally ignorant of software development. You think I jest... SUBROUTINE SUB1(X,DUMSUB) INTEGER N, X EXTERNAL DUMSUB COMMON /GLOBALS/ N
IF(X .LT. N)THEN
X = X + 1
PRINT *, 'x = ', X
CALL DUMSUB(X,DUMSUB)
END IF
END
In the cutting edge world of biological research scientists are still using the ancient language latin to name, classify and describe species of organism. The thing is why would they change?
Korma: Good