8 Feb
2010
8 Feb
'10
10 p.m.
On 8 Feb 2010 at 20:23, Ian King wrote:
FORTRAN is an example of a targeted solution to a
problem space and,
as such, is still quite useful. I consider C to be my 'mother tongue'
(despite having learned FORTRAN years earlier), but if I were doing
straight numeric work I'd much rather do it in something like FORTRAN
because I don't have to spend my time building program
'infrastructure' instead of writing math algorithms.
Few remember that many early microprocessor cross-assemblers were
written in FORTRAN to execute on whatever mini- or mainframe you had
available, be it a Data General Nova or CDC 7600. Inevitably, these
programs would start with a READ of a statement using A1 format into
an array to obtain the character set of the host. Character
manipulation was then handled by referencing this array.
At the time, FORTRAN was probably the most portable language that
there was, as long as one wasn't tempted to give in to using a
vendor's unique language extensions.
Was COBOL 75 the first ANSI language standard that prohibited such
extensions? Not that anyone paid much attention other than
implementing a "strict ANSI checking" compiler switch.
--Chuck