>> Actually, Fortran came from Valtrep
> WOW!
> Are you saying that Apple contracted with Valtrep for their Lisa FORTRAN?
> Or are you saying that the earliest versions of FORTRAN were based on
> Valtrep? If so, you should be aware that FORTRAN was in heavy active use
> in the 1960s, rather long before your 1980s experiences with Valtrep.
> NO. Valtrep may have made some nice improvements, but they were never
> part of the original creation of FORTRAN.
On Fri, 7 May 2010, Rich Alderson wrote:
I certainly understood Dan to be saying the former.
. . . and yet he is furious at me for suggesting that there was a
possibility that he might mean the former.
FORTRAN was
well on to its DECLINE in usage by then.
That would come as a serious surprise to
my friend Ivor Philips, who
. . .
As well as the Boeing engineers he supported as one of the theoretical
. . .
(I won't mention the shocked look I got from engineers here when I showed
them your statement.)
I should have given more emphasis to USAGE. FORTRAN is still used, and is
still the best tool for SOME things. But, in the early days, it was also
being used for many things that it was NOT ideal for. Bob Wallace used it
for setting up a computer dating system! (User 0 (Bob) got a suspiciously
disproportionate number of matches!)
I maintain that a higher percentage of computer users used FORTRAN in the
1970s than the percentage of computer users who used FORTRAN in the 1980s
or 1990s. I believe that even the total number of users of FORTRAN 4 was
higher than the total number of users of FORTRAN 77, due to increased
competition from other languages in the particular subsets of FORTRAN
usage that were better suited to other tools.
But, in looking for historical statistics, you will be pleased to note
that when I gave GOOGLE a query of "How many people used FORTRAN",
it CORRECTED me with "Did you mean: How many people _USE_ FORTRAN"
Since my assertion of a decline in total usage after its peak is an
unpopular one, I will look further to see what usage statistics are
available.
I taught beginning FORTRAN in the 1980s at Merritt College (community
college), and would not mind doing it again, if we could get a quorum for
the classes.
COBOL is gone from our curriculum :-(
RPG is gone from our curriculum :-)
FORTRAN is gone from our curriculum :-(
APL is gone from our curriculum :-(
BASIC is gone from our curriculum :-(
The administration has cancelled C
The administration has cancelled C#
The administration has cancelled ASM
We are down to "Using Microsoft Office", "VISUAL BASIC",
and C++ (slated for cancellation soon)
The CIS departments are circling the drain.
--
Grumpy Ol' Fred cisin at
xenosoft.com
