Debunking Fortran Myths

[ivan-pi]

There are several webpages, blogs, and articles, which try to debunk Fortran myths. I think having a QA section to help resolve misconceptions at Fortran-lang could be valuable.

Here are a few links:

• Myths | FortranWiki
• Debunking the myths about Fortran | ACM Fortran Forum (a PDF is available here)
• Fortran Myths & Disinformation Wanted | comp.lang.fortran
• Why do people think Fortran programs are hard to read? | Quora
• Why do people think Fortran is so bad? | Quora
• Will Julia replace Fortran for high performance computing? | Quora
• Is Fortran still used in 2021? | Quora
• THE MYTHS OF FORTRAN | The Craft of Coding (Michael Wirth has several very lucid essays about Fortran)
• Fortran is still a thing | Words and Buttons Online
• DEFY, DEmystify Fortran mYths | Szaghi
• In Numerical Computing with Modern Fortran, pg. 58, Hanson & Hopkins write,

  ... we attempt to convince the reader that Fortran recursion is an important and efficient programming technique. We will dispel some myths ...

• Why Fortran? | NCAR | DART
• Fortran: Tales of the Living Dead? | The Delocalized Physicist
• WHO SAID FORTRAN IS DEAD? | Hackaday
• 2.0.7 Dinosaurs | This Developer's Life
• The Joy of Fortran | OCEANOGRAPHER'S CHOICE

Roughly, I see two categories of misconceptions,

• those affecting programmers with little or no prior knowledge/awareness of Fortran
• those affecting Fortran programmers, who may only be familiar with a fraction of the standard

I was thinking about this topic while watching a lecture by Dan Saks on "Talking to C Programmers about C++". Here's a quote he refers to on several occasions:

“If you’re arguing, you’re losing.” — Mike Thomas

Some parts of the lecture are summarised here.

Perhaps by linking such an article in replies on HackerNews, Stack OverFlow, Quora, etc., we could slowly turn the tide against misinformation surrounding Fortran.

[ivan-pi]

The various journals from ACM have many good articles on the reasons behind Fortran:

• How Not to Write FORTRAN in Any Language | acmqueue
• The Ideal HPC Programming Language: Maybe it's Fortran. Or maybe it just doesn't matter. | acmqueue

  We undertook such an exercise to get a feel for what an "ideal" programming language for HPC applications might look like. ... Almost immediately, we were struck by what we were seeing. ... surprisingly, the "ideal" programming language was basically Fortran.

• Has Fortran a future? | ACM Fortran Forum
• Why Fortran? | ACM Fortran Forum
• Whither Fortran? | ACM Fortran Forum
• Fortran Matters | SD Times

The Fortran articles in CiSE also give many good reasons for Fortran:

• Why Fortran?
• The State of Fortran 🚀

Perhaps we could even share some of the opinions from famous (computer) scientists:

Fortran is harder to compete with. It has a dedicated following who [...] care little for programming languages or the finer points of computer science. They simply want to get their work done. — Bjarne Stroustrup

but I'm afraid this may backfire at some point.