tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-22973357.post7725501248886130427..comments2023-09-27T07:44:19.769-04:00Comments on Sabine Hossenfelder: Backreaction: FORTRAN at 50, inventor John Backus passed awaySabine Hossenfelderhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06151209308084588985noreply@blogger.comBlogger18125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-22973357.post-1254979109919732412007-04-30T16:25:00.000-04:002007-04-30T16:25:00.000-04:00Thanks for the post about John Backus, a little-kn...Thanks for the post about John Backus, a little-know person who has had a huge influence. <BR/><BR/>I worked as a programmer on a technical project for several years and worked heavily with a variety of languages. With respect to one particluar project I was working on, these are my observations: the core, that is, the scientific/mathematical parts are done in FORTRAN of a variety of flavors, Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-22973357.post-52907429668228221922007-04-30T03:31:00.000-04:002007-04-30T03:31:00.000-04:00Anonymous Snowboarder: Yes, I should have said tha...Anonymous Snowboarder: Yes, I should have said that too, it's absolutely true. For example, here you can find well tested <A HREF="http://flash.uchicago.edu/~tomek/htmls/num_meth.html" REL="nofollow"> Fortran numerical analysis code</A>.amaragrapshttps://www.blogger.com/profile/15769062084934190681noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-22973357.post-62966766711571916132007-04-29T20:04:00.000-04:002007-04-29T20:04:00.000-04:00Hi Bee,All my snow is melted :(amaragraps- somethi...Hi Bee,<BR/><BR/>All my snow is melted :(<BR/><BR/>amaragraps- <BR/><BR/>something to consider in regards to old code and routines surviving in such lanuages as FORTRAN and COBOL is that they are thoroughly tested and well understood. Its more than just translating from one language to the other - one must verify there are no imprecisions introduced.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-22973357.post-72893333479767096752007-04-29T17:12:00.000-04:002007-04-29T17:12:00.000-04:00Dear Gordon,no, sorry, I don't remember that. Actu...Dear Gordon,<BR/><BR/>no, sorry, I don't remember that. Actually, until last year I was convinced Waterloo is somewhere in Belgium. <BR/><BR/>I do remember learning <A HREF="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pascal_(programming_language)" REL="nofollow">pascal</A> and <A HREF="http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/8/85/AtariBasicExample.png" REL="nofollow">basic</A> though. I still recall how I Sabine Hossenfelderhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/06151209308084588985noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-22973357.post-51876897333264496272007-04-29T16:59:00.000-04:002007-04-29T16:59:00.000-04:00Bee: I remember taking my stack of cards to the IB...Bee: I remember taking my stack of cards to the IBM 360 control room ( how's that for dating myself). Also, do you remember APL, a kind of neat recursive programming language invented at your Waterloo by Iverson. I dont think it is being used any more. My son used Yak, Lex and C to write code for RPL a numerical relativity program.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-22973357.post-32205549382798793292007-04-29T13:24:00.000-04:002007-04-29T13:24:00.000-04:00Hi Arun,ah, no idea, sounds sensible to me. My pro...Hi Arun,<BR/><BR/>ah, no idea, sounds sensible to me. My problem with C is that I that I find it just very complicated. I mean, I was able to write some codes that actually did what they were supposed to, but I found the process really painful. That starting with me being unable to use any sample files because they didn't compile properly (for reasons I wasn't able to find out), packages not Sabine Hossenfelderhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/06151209308084588985noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-22973357.post-36464532527151206242007-04-29T13:23:00.000-04:002007-04-29T13:23:00.000-04:00Arun, I would say the bigger reason that Fortran i...Arun, I would say the bigger reason that Fortran is around today is the large number of very useful numerical libraries and legacy scientific code written in Fortran. (And ... those busy scientists have simply run out of time to learn a new programming language(s))amaragrapshttps://www.blogger.com/profile/15769062084934190681noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-22973357.post-18806510704701332202007-04-29T13:12:00.000-04:002007-04-29T13:12:00.000-04:00Backus to the future!As I understand it, Fortran r...Backus to the future!<BR/><BR/>As I understand it, Fortran remains around because it is possible to compile it to very efficient machine code, and also to make it run on multi-processor machines.<BR/><BR/>C/C++ suffers from a difficult problem (I forget the name - memory alias? disambiguation?) where it is difficult for the compiler to figure out whether two different names are referring to the Arunhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/03451666670728177970noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-22973357.post-3668234358669667342007-04-29T10:33:00.000-04:002007-04-29T10:33:00.000-04:00The worst trick to have played on you in college w...The worst trick to have played on you in college was for one of your roommates to rearrange part of your deck - sometimes it was only one or two cards but oy what a headache. <BR/><BR/>As to the col 7 start, well everything has its place when dealing with punch card originated languages. Column 1 could be marked as 'C' for 'comment' or 1-5 used for labels (numeric in early versions of FORTRANAnonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-22973357.post-91898816469612262572007-04-29T08:37:00.000-04:002007-04-29T08:37:00.000-04:00I too remember these cards... we used to play with...I too remember these cards... we used to play with them as kids :-)Sabine Hossenfelderhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/06151209308084588985noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-22973357.post-12373152068865749912007-04-29T08:28:00.000-04:002007-04-29T08:28:00.000-04:00Dear Stefan,I don't know, but I would also suggest...Dear Stefan,<BR/>I don't know, but I would also suggest 'tubes'.amaragrapshttps://www.blogger.com/profile/15769062084934190681noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-22973357.post-22504948033005745772007-04-28T20:54:00.000-04:002007-04-28T20:54:00.000-04:00The definition of Fortran has changed over the yea...The definition of Fortran has changed over the years. The older versions, like Fortran-66, are far more simple, elegant, and easy to use than the modern versions. The reason is that they kept adding constructs from more modern languages.<BR/><BR/>I started college in 1976 and Fortran was very common. I was <A HREF="http://infohost.nmt.edu/~uc/oldnews/tcc_v3_n5.html#2" REL="nofollow">fairly CarlBrannenhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/17180079098492232258noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-22973357.post-66404476520349653832007-04-28T19:50:00.000-04:002007-04-28T19:50:00.000-04:00Hi Stefan,I'd say tubes. See:http://preview.tinyur...Hi Stefan,<BR/><BR/>I'd say tubes. See:<BR/>http://preview.tinyurl.com/2mm37k<BR/><BR/>Best,<BR/><BR/>AndreasAnonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-22973357.post-75539931842461907602007-04-28T18:07:00.000-04:002007-04-28T18:07:00.000-04:00Hi Chickenbreader, thanks for these explantions - ...Hi Chickenbreader, <BR/><BR/>thanks for these explantions - together with the foto of the punchcard, that makes a lot of sense...<BR/><BR/><BR/>Dear Amara,<BR/><BR/>I also remember these cards - I had lots of them as a child, from my uncle wo studied mathematics and worked on numerical problems.<BR/><BR/>Now I think I understand how they work :-), there are these 72 columns with numbers 1 to 8 stefanhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/09495628046446378453noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-22973357.post-18493125152317715792007-04-28T17:26:00.000-04:002007-04-28T17:26:00.000-04:00Dear Stefan and Bee, I am one of those who remembe...Dear Stefan and Bee, I am one of those who remember using those IBM 80-column <A HREF="http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/5/58/FortranCardPROJ039.agr.jpg" REL="nofollow">punch cards</A> in Fortran. Beware of dropping your stack of cards on the way to the card reader ... :-)amaragrapshttps://www.blogger.com/profile/15769062084934190681noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-22973357.post-86900140205068253642007-04-28T15:24:00.000-04:002007-04-28T15:24:00.000-04:00The restrictive format (codes must be typed betwee...The restrictive format (codes must be typed between the 7th and 72nd letters of a line) has a historical reason. Back when computers have very small memory, codes were written and stored on punch cards. When one needs to compile and run a program, the cards are fed into a reading machine, and so on. Each card is something like a line of code. The 80-letter-per-line format corresponds to the ChickenBreederhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/02654417966675250243noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-22973357.post-91954981529894835212007-04-28T15:18:00.000-04:002007-04-28T15:18:00.000-04:00I just read that C.F.Weizsaecker passed away at th...I just read that <A HREF="http://tsm2.blogspot.com/2007/04/carl-friedrich-von-weizscker.html" REL="nofollow">C.F.Weizsaecker</A> passed away at the age of 94.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-22973357.post-81391571461014835992007-04-28T14:34:00.000-04:002007-04-28T14:34:00.000-04:00Hard to believe that fortran is already 50... nice...Hard to believe that fortran is already 50... nice photo. <BR/><BR/>I just love fortran - though I made some effort learning C, I still prefer it. It is flexible and not picky with definitions. I just wish someone could explain me why lines have to start with the 7th letter. I remember more than one occasion where this profound knowledge of mine saved a desperate grad. stud. who was trying to Sabine Hossenfelderhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/06151209308084588985noreply@blogger.com