Anyone for Fortran ?

[silicondale]

OK, so you've never even heard of Fortran... You need read no further.

It would be interesting to talk to somebody else who actually still uses this language, which I believe is still possibly the best for technical applications programming. It's beginning to get lonely in Fortranland, when even my clients don't understand what I'm doing ! (aside ... but then I first started programming in the 1960s in Algol (what's that I hear) and Atlas Autocode. Anybody know where I can find a good Algol compiler for Windows ?)

[Mark Snowdon]

Algol - look at that dust....

Couple of thoughts - dont gnu have an algol compiler ?
Also what about Dr.Dobbs they have a cd set of compilers for 'obscure' languages.

Not used Fortran for years.....went to C.

[MarillionFan]

Re: Algol - look at that dust....

Lloyds Register of Shipping used Fortran until a couple of years ago. Moved to VB!!!!!!!!

Anyway havent touched it for years. Did my 'industrial placement' in it? I'm surprised your still using it I though it died out when Charles Babbage was a boy

[Mark Snowdon]

Fortran

I was told a while ago that it is still the lang of choice on cray kit. Although it may just be thatr the libraries and routines are known to be reliable and safe.

[silicondale]

The stories of its death are grossly exaggerated

No, folks, Fortran is well and truly alive and kicking.

The new version of Salford Fortran 95 is even .Net compatible and can be used in mixed-language programming with C# and VB etc, and there's active language development continuing.

I'm using it for scientific software development (there's a vast amount of legacy code out there that would otherwise be unusable) on a project for the British Geological Survey - but there must be plenty of other organisations/companies that still use it because Salford Software is thriving on its Fortran compiler sales ! There are another half-dozen or so commercial vendors of Fortran compilers too.

[MarillionFan]

Re: The stories of its death are grossly exaggerated

We have been told |I

[AtW]

fortran

You fortran boy just wont die

[xoggoth]

Re: fortran

Not used it for over six years and even then It was just for occasional fiddling with an old physical properties package, was mostly using C.

Amazed you too started on ALGOL though, thought I was the only one on this board who had ever heard of it. You must be 306 too.

[colinc]

Great language.
Has lots of advantages which a C programmer wouldn't see because they are not old enough to have sufficient experience. Why do comedians write books like "Computing for Senior Citizens"? Same as writing "Tying shoe laces for Senior Citizens"; a bit boring!

[gadgetman]

Used it in college (I am old!) along with Cobol, neither of which have I used since.