Fortran is back on the top 20 TIOBE index list
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Re: Fortran is back on the top 20 TIOBE index list
#2The article didn't say the reason for Fortran's renewed popularity. Anyone know why? Only thing I can think of is either due to AI/ML or robotic-y needs.
Re: Fortran is back on the top 20 TIOBE index list
#3The article didn't say the reason for Fortran's renewed popularity. Anyone know why? Only thing I can think of is either due to AI/ML or robotic-y needs.
I can't say for sure the reason, but I can say with confidence the use of Fortran never really went out of style, but many of the uses were confined to classified systems and edge type or disconnected systems. Heavy number crunching is a big deal in applications like satellite imagery processing, signals surveillance, targeting and navigation. Fortran never really stopped being king there, but a lot of the development wasn't exactly taking place on engineer's personal laptops or Internet connected systems at all, so queries for how to do stuff wasn't being captured by Tiobe metrics.
The U.S. government has been making a huge push in the past decade to downgrade as much code as possible that doesn't need to be classified and push as much development as possible into fully unclassified environments to mitigate the cost of needing a fully cleared workforce. And network connectivity is generally increasing for systems that were not networked in the past.
Trends like these could easily account for Fortran developers doing more work in the open where they can just use Google to get answers instead of checking proprietary and closed information sources.
Re: Fortran is back on the top 20 TIOBE index list
#4Title is clickbait, suggest it be changed to something like Fortran is getting more popular.
Re: Fortran is back on the top 20 TIOBE index list
#5The article didn't say the reason for Fortran's renewed popularity. Anyone know why? Only thing I can think of is either due to AI/ML or robotic-y needs.
Maybe Intel making its Fortran compilers for Windows and Linux has helped. Fortran Discourse https://fortran-lang.discourse.group/ is a recent, active discussion site, and Fortran-lang https://fortran-lang.org/ is a recent information hub. On GitHub the Fortran Programming Language group https://github.com/fortran-lang is active, creating a Fortran standard library and package manager.
That said, although I'm a Fortran fan and programmer I doubt its relative popularity has truly jumped so much in 1 year.
Re: Fortran is back on the top 20 TIOBE index list
#6The article didn't say the reason for Fortran's renewed popularity. Anyone know why? Only thing I can think of is either due to AI/ML or robotic-y needs.
I do know that FORTRAN is considered the fastest scientific computing language; beating out C++.
I'm told that is because the standard libraries are so optimized.
Also, there is a gigantic infrastructure of literature, algorithms and support for the language. It is also relatively easy for folks that don't code for a living to use.
I wouldn't know, from experience. The last time I had anything to do with FORTRAN was in 1987, and I don't miss it one bit.
Re: Fortran is back on the top 20 TIOBE index list
#7The article didn't say the reason for Fortran's renewed popularity. Anyone know why? Only thing I can think of is either due to AI/ML or robotic-y needs.
took over a project that calculates the inbreeding-coefficient[1] on a platform for animal breeders. The product is used by breeding organization of endangered livestock (an Alpaca club in Ireland, a horse breeder in Belgium etc etc). My first reaction was WTF who decided on this technology. It was developed with some university professors focusing in veterinary geneology and so weren't aware that this isn't the right choice. When I asked them they were dead set on using this because apparently in their domain it is considered the go-to language for number-crunching. Idk if this is anecdotal or if there is a pattern but the feeling / takeaway I got was that some older academics would bring these things back because it's what they think is the right tool for the job. It was odd because most younger people I know who develop but don't consider themselves "developers" by trade would almost always resort to Python.
Re: Fortran is back on the top 20 TIOBE index list
#8The article didn't say the reason for Fortran's renewed popularity. Anyone know why? Only thing I can think of is either due to AI/ML or robotic-y needs.
As I understand it, the TIOBE index is calculated based on search engine rankings. What I believe helped Fortran's ranking was our hard work on its web presence [1] (started April 2020), modern tooling [2] (started December 2019), and community building [3] (started May 2020).
Re: Fortran is back on the top 20 TIOBE index list
#9Title is clickbait, suggest it be changed to something like Fortran is getting more popular .
Done, thanks!
Re: Fortran is back on the top 20 TIOBE index list
#10The article didn't say the reason for Fortran's renewed popularity. Anyone know why? Only thing I can think of is either due to AI/ML or robotic-y needs.
I can't say for sure the reason, but I can say with confidence the use of Fortran never really went out of style, but many of the uses were confined to classified systems and edge type or disconnected systems. Heavy number crunching is a big deal in applications like satellite imagery processing, signals surveillance, targeting and navigation. Fortran never really stopped being king there, but a lot of the developmen…
Any sort of language popularity tally is at least somewhat suspect. People who do this sort of thing systematically try to use a variety of sources and have some sort of formal methodology. But, at the end of the day, you're dependent on public data sources. If development is taking place behind closed doors, questions aren't being asked on stackoverflow or Google, not many books are being purchased, etc. you're going to undercount relative to, say, Javascript.