Fortran Anyone?

[Maine farmer]

The last time I wrote a computer program, I used Fortran.  Just wondering exactly how outdated my programming skills are.  Does anyone use Fortran for anything any more?

[sanctus]

I did my PhD (finished ~2 years ago) in Fortran and science I am no exception. How it works is, during the master/bachelor universities want to be modern and teach you C++, then if you go to the PhD your supervisor comes either from the Fortran time or his supervisor did; this means I got to the PhD-year 1 and my prof used Fortran so I learned it, since many programs I need he/others had already written. Over the PhD-years I got better and better at it (have even some accepted answers on stackoverflow) with the result that if I stayed in research then I would also be using Fortran. Conclusion: Fortran Never Dies :-).

 

Actually, when I asked once an informatician why ALL of them always laugh when you say Fortran, his reply was cool: "because it is old". So the only critic to Fortran seems to be its age:-).

Anyway, scientific coding is just sooo much easier in Fortran than say with C++...

[petrushkagoogol]

The last time I wrote a computer program, I used Fortran. Just wondering exactly how outdated my programming skills are. Does anyone use Fortran for anything any more?

When I graduated FORTRAN was in vogue. It used to be used with PASCAL. Today compilers are better and even a smart phone has more power than a PC of that period.