<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.01 Transitional//EN"> <html> <head> <meta content="text/html;charset=windows-1252" http-equiv="Content-Type"> </head> <body bgcolor="#ffffff" text="#000000"> 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: <blockquote cite="mid:1255572509.13106.321.camel@math.jpl.nasa.gov" type="cite"> <pre wrap="">On Wed, 2009-10-14 at 17:37 -0700, Paul McJones wrote: </pre> <blockquote type="cite"> <pre wrap=""><a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="http://www.wired.com/thisdayintech/2009/10/1015fortran-launch">http://www.wired.com/thisdayintech/2009/10/1015fortran-launch</a> 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. </pre> </blockquote> <pre wrap=""> 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 <a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="ftp://ftp.nag.co.uk/sc22wg5/N1601-N1650/N1648.pdf">ftp://ftp.nag.co.uk/sc22wg5/N1601-N1650/N1648.pdf</a>. Also "Fortran 95/2003 Explained" by Metcalf, Reid and Cohen. 2008: SPMD parallel programming -- See <a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="ftp://ftp.nag.co.uk/sc22wg5/N1751-N1800/N1787.pdf">ftp://ftp.nag.co.uk/sc22wg5/N1751-N1800/N1787.pdf</a> -- 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 <a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="ftp://ftp.nag.co.uk/sc22wg5/N1701-N1750/N1735.pdf">ftp://ftp.nag.co.uk/sc22wg5/N1701-N1750/N1735.pdf</a> </pre> </blockquote> </body> </html>