Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!rpi!zaphod.mps.ohio-state.edu!wuarchive!hsdndev!cmcl2!lanl!jlg
From: jlg@lanl.gov (Jim Giles)
Newsgroups: comp.lang.fortran
Subject: Re: Fortran - our favorite language
Message-ID: <19435@lanl.gov>
Date: 28 Mar 91 16:46:00 GMT
References: <1991Mar20.195732.15376@appmag.com> <2218@cluster.cs.su.oz.au> <16149@chaph.usc.edu>
Organization: Los Alamos Natl Lab, Los Alamos, N.M.
Lines: 22

From article <16149@chaph.usc.edu>, by echeverr@sal-sun8.usc.edu (The Black Sheep):
> Excuse me, but is it just me, or is fortran a language so old it is becoming
> obsolescent?	Really, i just can't handle doing programs while tripping over
> small details and phantom errors from nowhere and tricky compilations and
> core dump after core dump after execution...

Everything you say here can be applied to most languages of widespread
popular use.  And new languages aren't much better - the funny little
bugs and details you talk about are not yet shook out of new designs.
However, Fortran is one of the most stable and well understood languages
around.  There are fewer such minutiae to trip over in Fortran than any
other language still in widespread use.  Certainly you don't think C or
Pascal are better with respect to traps and pitfalls?  Or maybe you're
just using UNIX all the time and have never seen a good implementation
of anything but C?  (Frankly, I've never even seen a good C implementation
on plain vanilla UNIX - the good ones are all expensive commercial
products.)

J. Giles

P.S. Unfortunately, everything I just said about Fortran being stable
is about to be eradicated by the ANSI committee.  Oh well.