Fortran

Hey, I read in a book that there was an old programming language called FORTRAN that will try to make sence of pretty much any code you put in it. is there anywhere I can get an old copy of this? it sounds like it would be fun to play with :)

It's a "dead" language. If that would be the case, I think many people would use it even now (and be willing to pay big bucks for it too).

Believe me, it trying to make sense of anything you give is NOT a good thing. It will interpret what it thinks your code should be doing, not what you think it should.

I would hate that. I'd rather be told that I had fouled up rather than have it interpret me and then have to spend hours tracking the bug.

You are right there Banjo, but I think CoNFuSiOuS has a point - it would be quite fun to play with :)

Maybe, for about 2 minutes, while you stick in ridiculous code to see what it does. But for me, that sort of thing doesn't hold my interest for very long.

I have the book "Migrating to Fortran 90"; got it at a used book sale for about $0.50. I never really thought about learning it, just wanted to see what the code looked like. :)

Although, if I do get enough time, I might look for a compiler.

If there isn't already a Fortran.NET compiler, there will be one soon. Check it out.

Fortran is an old, old language.

Man...

You guys never learned Fortran, let alone programmed in it... I must be old.

It was one of the few languages I could use back when I had to program on our VAX computers... Ah... I can still remember the eerie green glow of the terminal screens... I would have given my eye teeth for Smalltalk/V on the VAX. That would have rocked.

About the only thing that ever made that language worth anything was the ISML library for solving differencial equations. It was primarily used in engineering applications (FORmula TRANslation) for speed... it was never intended to be a very interactive language. Monsanto Chemicals even made a derivative of it for solving chemical process control problems, called "FlowTRAN" (he he he).

And if one of you writes a "Visual Fortran", I'll have to hunt you down. Let the dead rest in peace. :rolleyes: (And yes, I know that DIGITAL wrote an application called "Visual Fortran" but it was far from visual)

Uhm... I can't stand this many misconceptions not being cleared up. I learned how to program using Fortran. I spent the first 5 years of my programming career doing Fortran.

A bit of history. Fortran was the first high level language. Pre-dates even Cobol. It was introduced in the mid 60's I believe.

It is a highly structured language. I don't know who told you that it would "run any code", but they were pulling your leg.

Fortran is not dead. It's still used in highly math intensive programs, mainly in engineering applications. Although I will admit, I haven't seen any classified ads for Fortran in 10 years or so. Unless they've changed recently, I do know that the Flight Simulator programs used for pilot training at FedEx were done in Fortran.

As far as I know, it's still the only language that can do complex numbers natively. Try to get VB to do the square root of -1.

I found several job listings at www.computerjobs.com looking for Fortran programmers.

I also know it's used in the meteorology field to build predictive weather systems (as if such a thing were possible!)

"do complex numbers natively".....

Does this mean that the joke about changing the value of 4 in Fortran is true? :) :)

So I change the value of 4 to 5,
Then I ask it what 2*2 is,
And it hangs on me..... :rolleyes:

Heh

Do you guys know what complex numbers are?

I assumed transendental numbers, imaginary numbers, etc.

Ya know, pi, eulers constant, square root of -2, etc.

I was joking about the value of 4

With pi and Euler's constant, they are not imaginary, they're irrational. :p

The complex number consisits of the real part and the imaginary part like 2 + 3 i. This is mathematically very useful - espeically, transforms like Laplace transforms or Fourier transforms to make mathematical manipulation easier.

In my school, some professors and students still use Fortran. It is powerful for complex mathematical calculations.

I definitely remember learning about language that would try to make sense of whatever you gave it. If Fortran then do you know which one it was. I can't remember for the life of me.

I'm sorry Banjo, I think it must have been a dream :)

No idea really. I'd not be surprised if there was some 4-GL out there like that. I know the English Query thingie that comes with SQL Server has a similar concept....

I bought VB-Elf that was a Natural Language Query Interpeter a few years back. It worked reasonably well with some tweaking. Way too much overhead though. It could double or triple the size of the database with it's indexes.

Hey cool... Can we have a Fortran forum too!? Put it right under the c++ one?

:p

(I'm JUST KIDDING, by the way) :)