The State of Fortran • Hacker News Board

Re: The State of Fortran

#111

Post by TheRealKing » Fri, Apr 08, 2022, 5:25 PM UTC

adgjlsfhk1 wrote: post #108

hilbert42 wrote: post #107

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Most Fortran code is FORTRAN 77" Just curious, how do you know that? I would have thought many establishments would have moved on by now. That said, I've a few of my personal programs that still run on IV - no need to change them as they still work fine (but then they're not running under the auspices of some institution where updating has relevance). I suppose a more relevant question would be what is the breakdown…

I haven't done a survey, but from what I've seen, most establishments have moved on. They moved on to C++, python, and julia. Fortran is still fast, but it no longer is unambiguously the fastest, so you need a really specific reason to write code in a less expressive language. (There's a reason the Fortran people are writing their standard library in Python)

If you have not done a survey, then please do not make generic claims in a public forum about a whole ecosystem based on your limited personal observations. I understand you like Julia very much and that you are possibly paid by JuliaComputing to bash other languages in online forums, specifically Fortran here, but please keep your discussions factual.

Re: The State of Fortran

#112

Post by adgjlsfhk1 » Sun, Apr 10, 2022, 12:57 AM UTC

TheRealKing wrote: post #111

adgjlsfhk1 wrote: post #108

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I haven't done a survey, but from what I've seen, most establishments have moved on. They moved on to C++, python, and julia. Fortran is still fast, but it no longer is unambiguously the fastest, so you need a really specific reason to write code in a less expressive language. (There's a reason the Fortran people are writing their standard library in Python)

If you have not done a survey, then please do not make generic claims in a public forum about a whole ecosystem based on your limited personal observations. I understand you like Julia very much and that you are possibly paid by JuliaComputing to bash other languages in online forums, specifically Fortran here, but please keep your discussions factual.

For a non-exhaustive survey (an exhaustive one would be very difficult because there's a lot of software, and methodology is complicated): 100% of Fortran in scipy is 77 https://github.com/scipy/scipy/search?l=fortran&p=1

50% of Fortran in numpy is 77 https://github.com/numpy/numpy/search?l=fortran&p=1

ARPACK, ATLAS, LAPACK, ODEPACK, SLATEC, UMFPACK are all notable Fortran libraries that are still fortran77.

A search of github suggest that by repository, there are roughly, 150 f77, 450 f90, 180 f95, and less than 230 for fortran 2003, 2008 and 2018 combined (fortran 2018 is especially dire there are only 6 repos with over 10 stars). however, it's worth noting that github is a site is biased towards newer versions since it only became a relatively dominant platform in the past 10 years or so.

All in all, I think my initial statement is probably wrong by 1 version. The majority of Fortran appears to be f90 or older, and only about 1/5th of fortran code was written on a version of the language from this millennium.

While I do work for JuliaComputing, my posts on HackerNews in no way reflect the views of the company. I'm not sure why you think paying software engineers to bash languages would be an efficient use of resources.

Re: The State of Fortran

#113

Post by TheRealKing » Sun, Apr 10, 2022, 6:55 PM UTC

adgjlsfhk1 wrote: post #112

TheRealKing wrote: post #111

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you have not done a survey, then please do not make generic claims in a public forum about a whole ecosystem based on your limited personal observations. I understand you like Julia very much and that you are possibly paid by JuliaComputing to bash other languages in online forums, specifically Fortran here, but please keep your discussions factual.

For a non-exhaustive survey (an exhaustive one would be very difficult because there's a lot of software, and methodology is complicated): 100% of Fortran in scipy is 77 https://github.com/scipy/scipy/search?l=fortran&p=1 50% of Fortran in numpy is 77 https://github.com/numpy/numpy/search?l=fortran&p=1 ARPACK, ATLAS, LAPACK, ODEPACK, SLATEC, UMFPACK are all notable Fortran libraries that are still fortran77. A search…

The statement "I do work for JuliaComputing" (which I predicted solely based on your writing style, generic to all JuliaComputing payees) fully explains the nature of your comments and arguments. Regarding your argument: Counting GitHub repositories is the silliest way of gauging a language growth or decline. The C++ language has nearly 7000 C++11 repositories, only 1600 C++14, far fewer C++20 repositories. According to your flawed logic, C++ is now on life support. A thorough knowledge of a topic is essential before commenting on it or criticizing it as an expert in a public forum. Learn about the minor and major standard releases.