Python programming

[William Ray Wing]

On Mar 7, 2014, at 1:03 PM, John Ladasky <john_ladasky at sbcglobal.net> wrote:

> 
> As for FORTRAN?  This week, I actually downloaded an application which required a FORTRAN compiler.  This is the only FORTRAN application I've ever needed.  It's not old code, the first revision came out about 10 years ago.  More than once, I have queried Google with the phrase "Why isn't FORTRAN dead yet?"  For some reason, it lives on.  I can't say that I understand why.  
> -- 
> https://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/python-list

Well, I’d claim that for what it was designed for (FORTRAN stands for FORmula TRANslator after all), it is still pretty da*mn good.  It generates extremely fast, robust code that requires much less debugging effort than the equivalent C or C++ requires.  Most of the physicists I know still write FORTRAN, although they no longer do so exclusively.

Of course, as has been pointed out, the HUGE code base of scientific and numerical analysis code that already exists in FORTRAN makes rewriting sort of a waste of grant (or company) money.

-Bill