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What REAL advantage does the switch to C++ from Fortran have for you? And NO not knowing fortran doesn't count if at 18 at my first job was told oh hear is a b

What REAL advantage does the switch to C++ from Fortran have for you? And NO not knowing fortran doesn't count if at 18 at my first job was told oh hear is a book on fortran learn it your graduates with a fancy CS degree can do the same.

nazgob 11y ago
The fact that I can do something does not mean that I would like to do it. Learning Fortran from scratch in 2015 might be bad career decision for a new grad.
- USNetizen 11y ago
  Not necessarily. Even just a rudimentary familiarity with it, or another language like COBOL, they could find a six-figure gig right out of school in several markets. They don't need to specialize in it, just knowing enough to get by will make them coveted by hundreds of defense and government contractors, for example.
  - jlarocco 11y ago
    That seems unlikely. I can easily imagine guys with 40 years experience writing Fortran or Cobol getting six figures. Or even just 10 years. But I'd have to see it to believe it for a straight out of college kid and rudimentary familiarity with the language.
- Kurtz79 11y ago
  I cannot really see any negative in learning a new language, something that any programmer should feel comfortable with and look forward too. It's not like learning FORTRAN (or C, or Pascal, or COBOL) will make someone unable to program in other more markeatable languages.
  - pauldix 11y ago
    The negative is that time is a finite and limited resource. If a junior person spends their time learning about Fortran or some other esoteric thing while their peers learn skills or languages that are in demand, the junior person that learned Fortran will be at a disadvantage. Of course, if you're doing it just for fun, then I'd say there's no negative. But from a career perspective, you'd be better off learning more relevant skills.
  - jkyle 11y ago
    For someone starting out, there's such a thing as opportunity loss. What language would that person had learned if they had not spent that time learning Fortran? Would that language had been more marketable in their next job? Further, what you used your last job matters. Particularly if that job is the _only_ real job since you got out of school. If you just learned Fortran for fun or for a job in a long list of jobs and your github account is littered with good work in multiple languages, Fortran can indicate flexibility, diversity, and a a broad skill set. If all I see is one job with Fortran for 2 or 3 years after school I might hesitate to hire you for a <insert language here> job at anything but entry level. edit Just a note, I think Fortran is a fine language and anyone whose done a decent amount of linear algebra work knows what a big role Fortran plays in analytics. My main point is that you should care about what your first job(s) are coming out of school because they can shape what the next jobs are going to be. So make sure it's something you want to be doing.
  - untog 11y ago
    It's a waste of time. Why learn FORTRAN when you can take a job learning a more widely used language?
- gherkin0 11y ago
  > Learning Fortran from scratch in 2015 might be bad career decision for a new grad. Isn't it still commonly used for scientific computing? So, maybe it would enable you to work on other kinds of neat stuff than the latest javascript UI framework.
  - semi-extrinsic 11y ago
    It is still very common in scientific computing, to the point that some of the best researchers in the field teach online classes using it: https://www.coursera.org/course/scicomp https://www.coursera.org/course/scicomp
apaprocki 11y ago
When you actually take a look at the bulk of FORTRAN, it looks suspiciously like C -- and it has C linkage. So, to me personally, I lump FORTRAN and C together in my head and then the question becomes "What real advantage does the switch to C++ from C have for you?". You can find vast amounts of information on the web to answer that question :) I have not known a single person in over a decade to go out and specifically learn FORTRAN as a separate language. Schools still provide graduates with C programming skills and any C programmer comfortable with the language can not only immediately read most FORTRAN, but can modify it as well.
- vonmoltke 11y ago
  > "What real advantage does the switch to C++ from C have for you?". You can find vast amounts of information on the web to answer that question :) As well as vast numbers of religious flamewars. I'm personally of the camp that (C || Fortran || "C with classes") + (Java || C# || Python || ${HIGHER_LEVEL_LANGUAGE}) is better for nearly any complex, performance-sensitive task.
  - iheartmemcache 11y ago
    People also have this false preconception that you have to write everything in Fortran77. You can keep a F77 codebase alive, while writing Fortran 90 (0) code which is surprisingly modern, has amazing mathematical computational performance (especially with Intel's MKL and compiler), and the language has amazing OpenMP integration. I'm with you on combining the best tool for the job and sometimes having a Java/C/Python wrapper is useful, but you can retain your Fortran tried-and-true-and-tested code-base while adding feature enhancements compiling against the Fortran2003 standard and often eliminate the need for wrappers. I guess the practical problem is finding F2003 engineers is way more challenging than a Java or C# dev. 0: F90 was the "big" upgrade that came out which made Fortran "modern", but there have been continuous upgrades like F95, and Fortran 2003 (I guess this would be analogous to C++17) which make it perfectly fine to write.
- arcanus 11y ago
  > I have not known a single person in over a decade to go out and specifically learn FORTRAN as a separate language. I much prefer c/cpp, but fortran remains pervasive in scientific computing and being conversational in it remains a prerequisite for fields in high performance computing, IMO.

nazgob 11y ago

The fact that I can do something does not mean that I would like to do it. Learning Fortran from scratch in 2015 might be bad career decision for a new grad.

USNetizen 11y ago
Not necessarily. Even just a rudimentary familiarity with it, or another language like COBOL, they could find a six-figure gig right out of school in several markets. They don't need to specialize in it, just knowing enough to get by will make them coveted by hundreds of defense and government contractors, for example.
- jlarocco 11y ago
  That seems unlikely. I can easily imagine guys with 40 years experience writing Fortran or Cobol getting six figures. Or even just 10 years. But I'd have to see it to believe it for a straight out of college kid and rudimentary familiarity with the language.
Kurtz79 11y ago
I cannot really see any negative in learning a new language, something that any programmer should feel comfortable with and look forward too. It's not like learning FORTRAN (or C, or Pascal, or COBOL) will make someone unable to program in other more markeatable languages.
- pauldix 11y ago
  The negative is that time is a finite and limited resource. If a junior person spends their time learning about Fortran or some other esoteric thing while their peers learn skills or languages that are in demand, the junior person that learned Fortran will be at a disadvantage. Of course, if you're doing it just for fun, then I'd say there's no negative. But from a career perspective, you'd be better off learning more relevant skills.
- jkyle 11y ago
  For someone starting out, there's such a thing as opportunity loss. What language would that person had learned if they had not spent that time learning Fortran? Would that language had been more marketable in their next job? Further, what you used your last job matters. Particularly if that job is the _only_ real job since you got out of school. If you just learned Fortran for fun or for a job in a long list of jobs and your github account is littered with good work in multiple languages, Fortran can indicate flexibility, diversity, and a a broad skill set. If all I see is one job with Fortran for 2 or 3 years after school I might hesitate to hire you for a <insert language here> job at anything but entry level. edit Just a note, I think Fortran is a fine language and anyone whose done a decent amount of linear algebra work knows what a big role Fortran plays in analytics. My main point is that you should care about what your first job(s) are coming out of school because they can shape what the next jobs are going to be. So make sure it's something you want to be doing.
- untog 11y ago
  It's a waste of time. Why learn FORTRAN when you can take a job learning a more widely used language?
gherkin0 11y ago
> Learning Fortran from scratch in 2015 might be bad career decision for a new grad. Isn't it still commonly used for scientific computing? So, maybe it would enable you to work on other kinds of neat stuff than the latest javascript UI framework.
- semi-extrinsic 11y ago
  It is still very common in scientific computing, to the point that some of the best researchers in the field teach online classes using it: https://www.coursera.org/course/scicomp https://www.coursera.org/course/scicomp

apaprocki 11y ago

When you actually take a look at the bulk of FORTRAN, it looks suspiciously like C -- and it has C linkage. So, to me personally, I lump FORTRAN and C together in my head and then the question becomes "What real advantage does the switch to C++ from C have for you?". You can find vast amounts of information on the web to answer that question :) I have not known a single person in over a decade to go out and specifically learn FORTRAN as a separate language. Schools still provide graduates with C programming skills and any C programmer comfortable with the language can not only immediately read most FORTRAN, but can modify it as well.

vonmoltke 11y ago
> "What real advantage does the switch to C++ from C have for you?". You can find vast amounts of information on the web to answer that question :) As well as vast numbers of religious flamewars. I'm personally of the camp that (C || Fortran || "C with classes") + (Java || C# || Python || ${HIGHER_LEVEL_LANGUAGE}) is better for nearly any complex, performance-sensitive task.
- iheartmemcache 11y ago
  People also have this false preconception that you have to write everything in Fortran77. You can keep a F77 codebase alive, while writing Fortran 90 (0) code which is surprisingly modern, has amazing mathematical computational performance (especially with Intel's MKL and compiler), and the language has amazing OpenMP integration. I'm with you on combining the best tool for the job and sometimes having a Java/C/Python wrapper is useful, but you can retain your Fortran tried-and-true-and-tested code-base while adding feature enhancements compiling against the Fortran2003 standard and often eliminate the need for wrappers. I guess the practical problem is finding F2003 engineers is way more challenging than a Java or C# dev. 0: F90 was the "big" upgrade that came out which made Fortran "modern", but there have been continuous upgrades like F95, and Fortran 2003 (I guess this would be analogous to C++17) which make it perfectly fine to write.
arcanus 11y ago
> I have not known a single person in over a decade to go out and specifically learn FORTRAN as a separate language. I much prefer c/cpp, but fortran remains pervasive in scientific computing and being conversational in it remains a prerequisite for fields in high performance computing, IMO.