Re: [SPG_Active_Members] Wired.com: Oct. 15, 1956: Fortran Forever Changes Computing’s Fortunes

[Paul McJones]

Van,

You "propeller heads" have been doing an amazing job of evolving the 
language to apply industrial-strength technology to real-world problems 
for decade after decade.


Paul


Van Snyder wrote:
> On Wed, 2009-10-14 at 17:37 -0700, Paul McJones wrote:
>   
>> http://www.wired.com/thisdayintech/2009/10/1015fortran-launch
>>
>> The reporter contacted me to ask for permission to use a photograph from 
>> a match book cover John Backus had given to me, and also had a few 
>> questions which I was happy to try to answer. The resultant story has 
>> links to the Fortran archives at CHM and SPG.
>>     
>
> To enlarge on Abell's "the propellerheads aren't done with Fortran...."
>
> Since 1966, the year in which the standard that Computer Science
> professors love to bash was published, there have been four revisions
> (and those same professors gleefully proclaim that they're completely
> ignorant of their contents).  A fifth will be published shortly.
> Fortran standards are referenced by the year their technical content is
> frozen, so the newest one will be called Fortran 2008.  ISO takes a
> while to publish.  Fortran hasn't been spelt with all caps since 1990,
> so Wired.com inadvertently got it right.
>
> 1977: Character variables, better support for I/O, structured
> programming, ....
>
> 1990: Modules, arrays, dynamic storage, free source form, ....  See
> "Fortran 90 Explained" by Metcalf and Reid.
>
> 1995: Mostly minor fixups  See "Fortran 90/95 Explained" by Metcalf and
> Reid.
>
> 2003: Object oriented programming, C interoperability, Stream I/O, IEEE
> arithmetic, .... See ftp://ftp.nag.co.uk/sc22wg5/N1601-N1650/N1648.pdf.
> Also "Fortran 95/2003 Explained" by Metcalf, Reid and Cohen.
>
> 2008: SPMD parallel programming -- See
> ftp://ftp.nag.co.uk/sc22wg5/N1751-N1800/N1787.pdf -- will be familiar to
> those familiar with UPC, which got its inspiration from the predecessor
> of this project, originally called F-- at Cray.  Performance
> enhancements, more intrinsic functions, I/O improvements, ....  See
> ftp://ftp.nag.co.uk/sc22wg5/N1701-N1750/N1735.pdf
>
>
>   

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