Subj : Re: RIP Niklaus Wirth
To   : tenser
From : Dr. What
Date : Thu Jan 11 2024 08:06 am

-=> tenser wrote to Dr. What <=-

 te> Fortran 2018, actually.  It only bears a passing resemblance
 te> to FORTRAN-77, let along -66 or IV (or earlier).

That's what I figured.  When I was researching FORTRAN not too long ago, the
YouTube tutorials in "newer" FORTRAN were very interesting.

 te> continue to be.  Not only is modern Fortran actually a
 te> pretty reasonable language, it turns out that a lot of the
 te> design of the language lends itself to very aggressive
 te> optimizations; the aliasing rules, for instance, mean that
 te> the compiler can automatically parallalize lots of programs
 te> in a way that other languages (so far) haven't been able to
 te> match.  Also, "the math hasn't changed."

I've always felt that FORTRAN was a "medium level" programming language.  That
is, not at the assembly language level, but close enough to the hardware that
it could be very fast.

It's an awful tool for doing things like UIs, but is wonderful for just
crunching numbers.

Many needs means many programming languages.  My grandpa always said: choose
the right tool for the job and the job goes quickly and easily.


.... How can you be so deaf with those huge ears?
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