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The State of Fortran

arxiv.org

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Re: The State of Fortran

#31

Post by PrintStar »

ogogmad wrote: post #4

What kind of editor support does Fortran have? I think a language is more than just a language as such, and the surrounding environment is at least as important if not more. I've used things like Mathematica, RStudio and Matlab, as well as Java IDEs, and these make all the difference.

We maintain a commercial, Fortran-specific IDE, Simply Fortran, that ships with the GNU Fortran compiler (at least on Windows and macOS): https://simplyfortran.com

It has many of the usual IDE expectations built in like autocomplete, project management, debugging, Git integration, etc. Our Windows distribution adds a few niceties like a Fortran-oriented (though basic) GUI library, a Windows-native coarray implementation (that doesn't use MPI), Windows-native OpenMP and threading, and a binary package manager for pre-built libraries.

We're decidedly a small player in a niche market, but I like to think Simply Fortran makes life easier for Fortran developers. Sorry for the self-promotion!

Re: The State of Fortran

#32

Post by buescher »

jordemort wrote: post #11

The fact that “The State of Fortran” is a paper on arXiv instead of a blog post actually says a lot about the state of Fortran.

I read that as "with all the good and bad that implies". That others didn't... well that's Fortran for you. Or maybe just hackernews.

Re: The State of Fortran

#33

Post by leephillips »

zozbot234 wrote: post #30
Silamoth wrote: post #27

Very interesting paper! It's cool to see that Fortran is still evolving. I've been considering learning it (when I have the time) because of its use for numerical computations and parallel processing. I feel like there's been a big push towards general-purpose languages like C++. However, I'd love to get a better feel for what it's like to program in a language specifically designed for your use case. The closest I'v…

I don't think there's much in Fortran that's still unique or "specifically designed" for numerics compute. General purpose languages reached parity with Fortran a long time ago. And "general purpose" typically wins anyway because it has the larger and more diverse ecosystem.

Most of them did not reach parity, at least not in performance. The fast languages are C, C++, Fortran, and Julia. Those are the only ones used for teraflop computing. Fortran is a great tool for scientific computing, but for new projects, where you are not extending an existing code base, Julia will be much more fun in every way.

Re: The State of Fortran

#35

Post by ivan-pi »

leephillips wrote: post #33
zozbot234 wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't think there's much in Fortran that's still unique or "specifically designed" for numerics compute. General purpose languages reached parity with Fortran a long time ago. And "general purpose" typically wins anyway because it has the larger and more diverse ecosystem.

Most of them did not reach parity, at least not in performance. The fast languages are C, C++, Fortran, and Julia. Those are the only ones used for teraflop computing. Fortran is a great tool for scientific computing, but for new projects, where you are not extending an existing code base, Julia will be much more fun in every way.

Depends on your needs. Sometimes you just need a hammer. Michael Wirth had a few comments about Julia recently: https://craftofcoding.wordpress.com/2022/03/14/why-i-have-gi...

Re: The State of Fortran

#36

Post by gh02t »

ogogmad wrote: post #4

What kind of editor support does Fortran have? I think a language is more than just a language as such, and the surrounding environment is at least as important if not more. I've used things like Mathematica, RStudio and Matlab, as well as Java IDEs, and these make all the difference.

CLion supports Fortran via a plugin. I've used it a bit and it's fine.

https://www.jetbrains.com/help/clion/fortran-support.html

Re: The State of Fortran

#37

Post by eyegor »

ogogmad wrote: post #4

What kind of editor support does Fortran have? I think a language is more than just a language as such, and the surrounding environment is at least as important if not more. I've used things like Mathematica, RStudio and Matlab, as well as Java IDEs, and these make all the difference.

The Intel oneapi hpc toolkit (now free for commercial use too) has plugins for Visual Studio that are updated regularly. Full support in vs2019, about 90% works in vs2022. Of course you miss out on some of the most modern features like predictions that you get with copilot or the variant that Microsoft ships for C#, but it still has autocomplete, type hints, etc and a full featured debugger. There are also language server plugins available for vscode.

Re: The State of Fortran

#38

Post by ratboy666 »

kergonath wrote: post #19
ogogmad wrote: post #4

What kind of editor support does Fortran have? I think a language is more than just a language as such, and the surrounding environment is at least as important if not more. I've used things like Mathematica, RStudio and Matlab, as well as Java IDEs, and these make all the difference.

I tend to use TextMate on Mac or SublimeText on other platforms. Fortran also is usually very close to C, and most standard debuggers like ten or lldb (even when LLVM had no Fortran front-end) can be used without problems. It’s a bit barebones compared to recent IDEs, sure. What I would like in particular is better refactoring and static analysis tools (though the lack of the latter is mitigated by the strong type sy…

But... Matlab was originally written in FORTRAN ("easy access to... LINPACK and EISPACK..."). Written by Cleve Moler, distributed by Jim Kweeder. May 25, 1982. 7852 lines of FORTRAN 66 (for the version I have).

"With proper use of overlays, it is possible run the system on a minicomputer with only 32K bytes of memory." -- Cleve Moler

Fred Weigel

Re: The State of Fortran

#39

Post by dev_tty01 »

zozbot234 wrote: post #21
ogogmad wrote: post #4

What kind of editor support does Fortran have? I think a language is more than just a language as such, and the surrounding environment is at least as important if not more. I've used things like Mathematica, RStudio and Matlab, as well as Java IDEs, and these make all the difference.

Last I checked, you had to write out your program on paper, using the special Fortran coding forms. Then you just gave the written out forms to someone who would type out your codes at a keypunch and give you a deck of freshly punched cards, or you could take care of it yourself.

I learned Fortran with punch cards and a teletype. We would hand a program deck (a stack of cards) to the machine operator and in a few minutes our printed output and the program deck would appear in an alphabetized set of bins. The physical stack of cards was the only storage medium for the code.

Check your debug output, modify (or insert) a few cards and repeat.

Don't forget the JCL (job control language) on the first card. That is how you tell the mainframe what resources your code needs and how to run it. If you get that wrong nothing happens.

We were taught to draw a diagonal line across the top edge of the deck of cards so you could quickly put the deck back together correctly if it was dropped.

Re: The State of Fortran

#40

Post by leephillips »

ivan-pi wrote: post #35
leephillips wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Most of them did not reach parity, at least not in performance. The fast languages are C, C++, Fortran, and Julia. Those are the only ones used for teraflop computing. Fortran is a great tool for scientific computing, but for new projects, where you are not extending an existing code base, Julia will be much more fun in every way.

Depends on your needs. Sometimes you just need a hammer. Michael Wirth had a few comments about Julia recently: https://craftofcoding.wordpress.com/2022/03/14/why-i-have-gi...

These comments seem out of date. There hasn’t been an issue, really, with breaking code for quite a while, since 1.0. They also show a lack of understanding in some respects, for example complaining about the hello world memory usage. Running a Julia program in the usual way loads the runtime.

For another take, Jack Dongarra was just awarded 2021 ACM Turing prize. He’s the creative force behind LINPACK and BLAS, and says that Julia is a good candidate for the “next computing paradigm”: https://www.zdnet.com/article/jack-dongarra-who-made-superco...

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