Recent Comments

1. about 10 years ago on FoxTrot

   I wrote Fortran programs back in the 1970s using punch cards. Back then, you wrote your comments on cards separate from the source code. Fortran did not have in-line comments in those days, just as it did not have free-format source form. Each card was a separate line of text, whether comment or source code.These days, of course, nobody uses punch cards. Modern editors and IDEs work just as well with modern Fortran as they do with other programming languages.

2. about 10 years ago on FoxTrot

   I’ll answer some of the questions and refute some of the incorrect statements. I have used Fortran for nearly 40 years. I still use it nearly every day.

   Fortran is a computer programming language that was originally designed in 1954. It is still very much in use today. The latest version is Fortran 2008, which was approved by the ISO in 2010. The modern versions of Fortran (Fortran 90, 95, 2003, and 2008) have many features of modern programming languages. Fortran 2003 and 2008 are fully object-oriented. Fortran 2008 has built-in parallel processing.

   By official ruling of the ISO, the name of the language is a proper noun, i.e., it is spelled “Fortran”, NOT “FORTRAN”.

   The program examples that Jason Fox wrote ARE proper standard Fortran. Jason Fox used the free-format style that was introduced in Fortran 90. Fortran has had lower-case syntax as a standard feature since Fortran 2003.

   No, you don’t need to use specific columns for input or output any more. Fortran has had free-form list-directed reads and writes since the days of FORTRAN 77. In fact, the “print” statements that Jason Fox is using use list-directed format.