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Interesting suggestion. I have not programmed a lot in Fortran but with my limited exposure to it I like the first class support multidimensional arrays. It has

Interesting suggestion. I have not programmed a lot in Fortran but with my limited exposure to it I like the first class support multidimensional arrays. It has a simple and clean syntax too. Definitely wins in speed and longevity. Can someone with more experience of Fortran explain if this language is still relevant today and if it makes sense to get started with it in this day and age? If so, which Fortran standard to use? Fortran 90? Which compiler implementation to use?

atrettel 6y ago
I have experience with modern Fortran. The features that make Fortran relevant today are the array operations, simpler memory management than C/C++ (the allocate statement), and the ability to change floating point and integer precision easily. If you are doing math on very large arrays, Fortran is one of the best ways to go. If you are just starting to learn it, try to follow at least the Fortran 2003 standard and up, because it introduces many more modern conveniences. Many people still use Fortran 77 but honestly I see no reason to look at it at all. Fortran 90 really was only the start of the modernization of Fortran. Most compilers (GNU/gfortran and Intel/ifort) already support the Fortran 2003 standard. For a free software solution, stick to GNU (unless you want to pay for the Intel compiler).
TheRealKing 6y ago
Modern Fortran is a bliss, very high level comparable to MATLAB and Python, yet lightening fast, only a professional careful C programmer could get to its speed. Meanwhile, the only high-level programming language that provides a very simple native builtin syntax for one the most difficult types of distributed parallel computing. If you begin to learn Fortran, start from Fortran 2008 and beyond. Most major compilers support all of Fortran 2008 and and most of Fortran 2018, including Intel Fortran, NAG, GNU, Fujitsu, Cray, PGI, ...
- AnimalMuppet 6y ago
  > only a professional careful C programmer could get to its speed. And a professional careful C programmer would not get to Fortran's library of numerically stable libraries for a very long time.

atrettel 6y ago

I have experience with modern Fortran. The features that make Fortran relevant today are the array operations, simpler memory management than C/C++ (the allocate statement), and the ability to change floating point and integer precision easily. If you are doing math on very large arrays, Fortran is one of the best ways to go. If you are just starting to learn it, try to follow at least the Fortran 2003 standard and up, because it introduces many more modern conveniences. Many people still use Fortran 77 but honestly I see no reason to look at it at all. Fortran 90 really was only the start of the modernization of Fortran. Most compilers (GNU/gfortran and Intel/ifort) already support the Fortran 2003 standard. For a free software solution, stick to GNU (unless you want to pay for the Intel compiler).

TheRealKing 6y ago

Modern Fortran is a bliss, very high level comparable to MATLAB and Python, yet lightening fast, only a professional careful C programmer could get to its speed. Meanwhile, the only high-level programming language that provides a very simple native builtin syntax for one the most difficult types of distributed parallel computing. If you begin to learn Fortran, start from Fortran 2008 and beyond. Most major compilers support all of Fortran 2008 and and most of Fortran 2018, including Intel Fortran, NAG, GNU, Fujitsu, Cray, PGI, ...

AnimalMuppet 6y ago
> only a professional careful C programmer could get to its speed. And a professional careful C programmer would not get to Fortran's library of numerically stable libraries for a very long time.