3 ms·

I think that's only party true. Physicists would probably not be exposed to Fortran if it wasn't for "apprenticeship". But the same would be true for any other

by goerz 10y ago

I think that's only party true. Physicists would probably not be exposed to Fortran if it wasn't for "apprenticeship". But the same would be true for any other very domain-specific language (let's say Mathematica). However, that doesn't change the fact that Fortran (in its modern syntax) is a great language for numerics. Its abstractions are extremely well-suited for any computation focusing on multidimensional arrays. It is certainly a more expressive language for numerics than C/C++ (and it's not as easy to shoot yourself in the foot in Fortran). There's not that many other languages that can compete for high performance applications. Julia looks like it can do some interesting things. Python is great as a glue language (but not for number crunching, and of course it's slow). I would still (and regularly do) choose Fortran for new projects. It's not going away anytime soon.

hzhou321 10y ago
Let's see how I may clarify the argument. First, if one is familiar with a language or invested in a language, he will be biased to choose that language and it makes sense for him. Before you would argue, I admit I can't prove that you are biased, but nor could you prove you are not biased. So let's agree that some anecdotes like your case is not a strong argument. So let's look at it in another angle. If physicist/people choose FORTRAN not merely due to apprenticeship, it necessarily means that there will be people choose FORTRAN even when his master do not introduce/require him to use FORTRAN. In another word, we need examples of people who choose FORTRAN despite of non-familiarity to FORTRAN. There are plenty of such cases for, e.g. rust. For me at least, I know none such. How about you? For example, how successful have you been influence other people (other than your student) to use FORTRAN? On the other hand, I do know people who choose other language despite of the familiarity of FORTRAN.
- goerz 10y ago
  Of course knowing a programming language strongly biases someone to choose that language in a project. I also agree you will not find a lot of people (if any) using Fortran who have not been introduced to the language as part of their research, following the recommendation of someone senior (e.g. their advisor). However your original argument was that Fortran was only used because advisors were forcing their students to do so, and that Fortran would die out eventually along with those dinosaurs. I don't think this is true, and I don't think the fact that people generally don't just stumble into Fortran by themselves is any evidence to the contrary. As the original article points out, the reason that Fortran continues to be used is that it is the most suitable language for its domain (but of course not as a general purpose language) The prerequisite for using Fortran is that someone works in a field that relies heavily on large scale, high performance numerical computation. Since Fortran is pervasive in that domain, it's extremely likely the they would be exposed to Fortran through "apprenticeship". Basically, most people who should be using Fortran are using Fortran! I've seen a few instances where people used C/C++ or Matlab in situations where Fortran would have been more appropriate. Matlab has its own drawbacks, but it is also a very domain-specific numerical language, and likewise its users are exposed to it through apprenticeship! C/C++ is still the default language for high performance computing outside of numerics, and thus it's not surprising that people who have not been exposed to Fortran would attempt to use it for numerical purposes as well. There isn't exactly a lot of choice for numerical programming: Python and Matlab are (partly) designed with numerical purposes in mind, but don't scale to high performance. C/C++ are performant, but not expressive for numerics. There really isn't any other language that would even be in consideration, besides now Julia, but Julia is extremely new, so time will tell. I don't know anything about Rust, but based on reading its Wikipedia article its not a language designed for numerics, but basically something designed to replace C++ for systems programming. Thus, like C/C++, it will be performant, but not expressive for numerical purposes.

by goerz 10y ago

hzhou321 10y ago

Let's see how I may clarify the argument. First, if one is familiar with a language or invested in a language, he will be biased to choose that language and it makes sense for him. Before you would argue, I admit I can't prove that you are biased, but nor could you prove you are not biased. So let's agree that some anecdotes like your case is not a strong argument. So let's look at it in another angle. If physicist/people choose FORTRAN not merely due to apprenticeship, it necessarily means that there will be people choose FORTRAN even when his master do not introduce/require him to use FORTRAN. In another word, we need examples of people who choose FORTRAN despite of non-familiarity to FORTRAN. There are plenty of such cases for, e.g. rust. For me at least, I know none such. How about you? For example, how successful have you been influence other people (other than your student) to use FORTRAN? On the other hand, I do know people who choose other language despite of the familiarity of FORTRAN.

goerz 10y ago
Of course knowing a programming language strongly biases someone to choose that language in a project. I also agree you will not find a lot of people (if any) using Fortran who have not been introduced to the language as part of their research, following the recommendation of someone senior (e.g. their advisor). However your original argument was that Fortran was only used because advisors were forcing their students to do so, and that Fortran would die out eventually along with those dinosaurs. I don't think this is true, and I don't think the fact that people generally don't just stumble into Fortran by themselves is any evidence to the contrary. As the original article points out, the reason that Fortran continues to be used is that it is the most suitable language for its domain (but of course not as a general purpose language) The prerequisite for using Fortran is that someone works in a field that relies heavily on large scale, high performance numerical computation. Since Fortran is pervasive in that domain, it's extremely likely the they would be exposed to Fortran through "apprenticeship". Basically, most people who should be using Fortran are using Fortran! I've seen a few instances where people used C/C++ or Matlab in situations where Fortran would have been more appropriate. Matlab has its own drawbacks, but it is also a very domain-specific numerical language, and likewise its users are exposed to it through apprenticeship! C/C++ is still the default language for high performance computing outside of numerics, and thus it's not surprising that people who have not been exposed to Fortran would attempt to use it for numerical purposes as well. There isn't exactly a lot of choice for numerical programming: Python and Matlab are (partly) designed with numerical purposes in mind, but don't scale to high performance. C/C++ are performant, but not expressive for numerics. There really isn't any other language that would even be in consideration, besides now Julia, but Julia is extremely new, so time will tell. I don't know anything about Rust, but based on reading its Wikipedia article its not a language designed for numerics, but basically something designed to replace C++ for systems programming. Thus, like C/C++, it will be performant, but not expressive for numerical purposes.