3 ms·

You haven't actually used Fortran, have you? It's okay for demonstrating short snippets of code, but actually writing Fortran programs is pretty awful if you're

• timthorn 16y ago
  Not in anger, no - but that's my point: there's an intellectual pleasure in learning about it, even if there may be pain when trying to write a full application.
• psykotic 16y ago
  > You haven't actually used Fortran, have you? It's okay for demonstrating short snippets of code, but actually writing Fortran programs is pretty awful if you're used to modern languages. It's like the syntax of BASIC combined with the safety of assembly language. Please look at the feature set of Fortran 2008 and say that again with a straight face.
  • pmjordan 16y ago
    Possibly. The last versions I used were Fortran 90 and 95, which were quite frankly an insult to the 40 or so years of programming language design research and practice leading up to it.
    • psykotic 16y ago
      The same could be said and has been said for C++ as an evolution of pre-ANSI C. A radical blank-slate language like Fortress is by its nature different from a conservative but still significant extension like Fortran 2008. Both efforts seek to advance the state of the art in the same field but from different directions.
    • fanf2 16y ago
      The "F programming language" subset of Fortran 95 is rather nice, except for the bizarre omission of the while loop.