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From: carroll@ssc-vax (Jeff Carroll)
Newsgroups: comp.lang.fortran
Subject: Re: Decent FORTRAN books?
Message-ID: <4078@ssc-bee.ssc-vax.UUCP>
Date: 6 Jun 91 06:35:43 GMT
Article-I.D.: ssc-bee.4078
References: <13270@pt.cs.cmu.edu> <28962@uflorida.cis.ufl.EDU> <14612@exodus.Eng.Sun.COM>
Sender: news@ssc-vax.UUCP
Reply-To: carroll@ssc-vax.UUCP (Jeff Carroll)
Organization: Boeing Aerospace & Electronics
Lines: 33

In article <14612@exodus.Eng.Sun.COM> wsb@boise.Eng.Sun.COM (Walt Brainerd) writes:
>In article <28962@uflorida.cis.ufl.EDU>, bernhold@red8 (David E. Bernholdt) writes:
>> I strongly recommend
>> Harry Katzan, Jr., Fortran77, Van Nostrand Reinhold, 1978.
>
>I reviewed this book (Computing Reviews) when it came out and there
>was a factual error about the language (not just a typo) on about
>every page.  Though many may be minor, they probably are significant
>to readers of this group.  I would much rather trust Meissner & Organick
>or Wagener, even though they are written as textbooks--at least these
>guys know the language well.

Yeah. I was a little surprised to see someone recommending Katzan. I haven't
read the fortran book, but his book on operating systems was entirely
IBM-centric, utterly vague, and worse than useless. (Knowing very little
about the IBM world, I can't vouch for the correctness of his facts.)

Katzan used to work for Boeing, too. Caveat emptor :^).

I have a copy of the Barnes & Noble outline on FORTRAN and have found it
helpful for general reference though probably not detailed enough for
the serious. I've been fortunate enough to have a copy of the ANSI
standard (and someone who understood it) around when I needed it, and
doubly fortunate at having been able to write most of my FORTRAN under
VMS.



-- 
Jeff Carroll		carroll@ssc-vax.boeing.com

"...and of their daughters it is written, 'Cursed be he who lies with 
any manner of animal.'" - Talmud