h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Entry: Fortran - the Programming Language - A64512146
Author: Mikeo the gregarious - U201990

Hopefully a fairly straightforward entry about the programming language Fortran, including its history and uses. I've included some footnotes to explain some of the technical stuff like double precision and allocatable arrays.

Any thoughts?

Yes this entry manages to stay at about the right level without sinking into too much detail and computer-speak - well done, it could have been easy to over-egg it and lose the non-technical reader.

If does tend to concentrate on the timeline of FORTRAN standards evolution rather than the language itself. You could include a BRIEF code fragment to show readers what the language looks like with a simple description of what it is doing.

I used FORTRAN on a daily basis for over 20 years. One of the great criticisms thrown at the language was its apparent lack of structured programming statements (in FORTRAN IV), and especially the much-castigated GOTO statement (and even worse, the computed GOTO). This was a falsehood. It was perfectly easy to write structured code - you just had to create the structure yourself - IF-THEN-ELSE constructs were ease to emulate. Structured programming is also in the mind, not just in the language.

with this Mikeo

You mentioned using Fortran for more mundane operations like payroll.
Actually most payroll probably used COBOL which was another early high level language.
In 1968 I actually took a six week course in Assembler language and got a certificate.
When we actually tested my Assembly level language program it had to many errors to run( as did those of all my classmates). Had I gone further and learned FORTRAN or COBOL I might well have ended up working in the field. As it was someone said my training certificate and a quarter would buy me a cup of coffee.

I wrote and maintained Fortran programs for about 10 years. I must have a read of this Entry.

OK, I've given it a quick read through. On first impressions, it is rather dull. Most of it seems to be a list of all the different versions, without really telling us very much about the language itself.

I think you should give us a sample program, say a "Hello World" program in one of the versions of Fortran.

I also think you should explain a bit more about what a compiler is.

You mention logical variables without explaining them, which suggests to the reader that previous versions somehow used illogical variables. If you mention that logical variables are ones that can have two possible values, true or false, it might make it a bit clearer.

One other thing - it's normally called 'object-oriented programming' rather than 'object-orientated programming'.

OK ... I've tried to shorten the section listing the versions and their features. I agree it isn't the most interesting bit of writing, but I thought the points about FORTRAN 77 still being in use and Fortran 90 being the basis for the latest versions were worth having.

As hi5ringer and Gnomon have suggested, I've also added two short program code examples: a "Hello, world!" and one that does a little number-crunching. Hopefully they should give a flavour of the language.

Other minor edits: I've added a definition of a compiler, put in a footnote about logical/Boolean variables, corrected "object-oriented programming" and removed payroll as a use for Fortran (I agree COBOL was probably more likely to be used for that).

Any more for any more?

Just having a look at the bigger program, and I spotted an inconsistancy. There's some lines that start with 'WRITE (*,*)' and others that start with 'WRITE(*,*)'. I don't know enough about Fortran to say where that's right or wrong, but a command being called in two different ways in the same code looks... odd.

Please stop me if I'm talking nonsense.


Geggs

They're both correct, because Fortran completely ignores spaces within statements, other than within quotes.

Good progress, Mikeo. This looks good now.

One little grammar point:

"and all other imperative-based languages can consider Fortran as its original source"

That should "as their original source".

Ooops ... thanks for catching that, Gnomon.

I have made the spacings within commands in the sample codes more consistent as well, though as Gnomon says that makes no difference to the compiler. The commands can also be in either upper or lower case (or a mixture of the two), but I thought capitalising them would make them easier to spot.

I think this is a good entry, explains things rather well.



sprout

http://h2g2.com/dna/h2g2/brunel/A87607597


Hi Mikeo

If you click the link at the top it will take you to the recommended version of this Entry. Somehow it would appear that your Entry had been selected by the BBC Eds - but would appear to be now in two places at once. We'll look into this and try and sort it out.


In the meantime - Congratulations seem to be in order.

Your Entry *had* been recommended by a Scout and has been accepted by the Editors!