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I learned Fortran back in 2016 for a HPC course. It was indeed quick to learn but the resources online at the time for understanding compiler and runtime errors

by khrbrt 3y ago

I learned Fortran back in 2016 for a HPC course. It was indeed quick to learn but the resources online at the time for understanding compiler and runtime errors were scant compared to more popular languages. I mostly referenced pdfs of old books, and course notes scattered across various academic pages of ~vintage for learning the language and had sparse SO answers for help with gfc errors. This quote from the article rings true to me: >First, the lack of a standard library, a common resource in modern programming languages, makes mundane general-purpose programming tasks difficult. Second, building and distributing Fortran software has been relatively difficult, especially for newcomers to the language. Third, Fortran does not have a community maintained compiler like Python, Rust or Julia has, that can be used for prototyping new features and is used by the community as a basis for writing tools related to the language. Finally, Fortran has not had a prominent dedicated website – an essential element for new users to discover Fortran, learn about it, and get help from other Fortran programmers.

hecanjog 3y ago
The folks behind https://fortran-lang.org https://fortran-lang.org have been working on many of these issues.
- jamesfinlayson 3y ago
  I wonder what the driver was? Anyway, first release of Fortran Package Manager was in November 2020: https://github.com/fortran-lang/fpm/releases/tag/v0.1.0 https://github.com/fortran-lang/fpm/releases/tag/v0.1.0 - more recently than I expected.
  - jabl 3y ago
    It was, and AFAIU still is, a grassroots effort started by people who liked Fortran as a language, but decided that the state of package management and availability of "standard" libraries was behind other languages, and decided to do something about other than whining in discussion forums. And that lack of an attractive website introducing the language to newcomers and pointing to the new tools like package managers and package repositories was a barrier to entry, hence the creation of the https://fortran-lang.org/en/ https://fortran-lang.org/en/ website.

by khrbrt 3y ago

hecanjog 3y ago

The folks behind https://fortran-lang.org https://fortran-lang.org have been working on many of these issues.

jamesfinlayson 3y ago
I wonder what the driver was? Anyway, first release of Fortran Package Manager was in November 2020: https://github.com/fortran-lang/fpm/releases/tag/v0.1.0 https://github.com/fortran-lang/fpm/releases/tag/v0.1.0 - more recently than I expected.
- jabl 3y ago
  It was, and AFAIU still is, a grassroots effort started by people who liked Fortran as a language, but decided that the state of package management and availability of "standard" libraries was behind other languages, and decided to do something about other than whining in discussion forums. And that lack of an attractive website introducing the language to newcomers and pointing to the new tools like package managers and package repositories was a barrier to entry, hence the creation of the https://fortran-lang.org/en/ https://fortran-lang.org/en/ website.