21–30 of 37 posts
Earlier quoted context omitted.
COBOL is another one. COBOL programs written decades ago are still running unchanged on mainframes today. (Not that it was ever used for scientific computing.)
I recall reading on HN a while back that a modern z/OS mainframe can run unmodified System/360 binaries.
Relevant to Fortran, there's a version of ESSL that I recall on OS\370 now for POWER9 (and doubtless 10). Scientific subroutine libraries are arguably the best example of the re-use beloved of those who haven't seen their OOP code last decades.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
LFortran is not ready yet for production usage, but I've been developing it on M1 Macs, everything works (both compiling of LFortran itself, as well as LFortran compiling other codes and interactive usage in Jupyter). It compiles really fast and I really enjoy the experience of M1.
Very interested in LFortran, are there any benchmarks how it compares with respect to performance to GFortran or Intel Fortran?
We want to have a dedicated repository for benchmarking compilers:
My first language, 1965, on a CDC 3100. We used Eliot Organick`s text book. Wonderful memories.
1964, IBM 1620, 1311 drive. McCracken text. I remember the day the prof was late to class and came in looking much the worse for wear. The drive had experienced a head crash.
The best failure I know was due to beer fermenting in the warm space above the fancy disk of an old Sigma 3; with hilarious consequences. No opportunity to get worse for wear from that batch, obviously.
How does LFortran compare to flang?
https://fortran-lang.org/compilers/
The legacy Flang and a new Flang. I don't know exactly the plans for the legacy Flang, but I assume the idea is to eventually use new Flang. The new Flang and LFortran where started at about the same time, they have a little bit different design. Both written in C++. LFortran has from the ground up written to be interactive (like Julia or Python), in addition to regular compilation to binaries. Some of the other goals of Flang and LFortran overlap.
I think it's good for Fortran to have at least two actively developed open source compilers.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
I often nowadays find GNU GFortran the same speed or faster than Intel Fortan for FEM/CFD codes, while 10-15 years ago Intel Fortan was 10-20% faster in general. So these days I typically just recommend to go with GFortan which is easily available on most platforms.
And not only on such codes. I've posted variations on this before: In my experience GNU Fortran was always competitive with proprietary compilers at around the 20% level on average once the scheduling was sorted for a new architecture. That's from the times I could try SPARC SunOS and GNU/Linux, MIPS/Irix, Alpha/Tru64(?), RS6000/AIX, and x86 GNU/Linux. (I don't know about the times between those and Opteron.) I don't…
Earlier quoted context omitted.
COBOL is another one. COBOL programs written decades ago are still running unchanged on mainframes today. (Not that it was ever used for scientific computing.)
I recall reading on HN a while back that a modern z/OS mainframe can run unmodified System/360 binaries.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
I recall reading on HN a while back that a modern z/OS mainframe can run unmodified System/360 binaries.
wine can also run unmodified windows binaries
I've been a Fortran user for (gawd help me) 35 years or so. I can say that rumors of its demise are greatly exaggerated. There are many languages, and language fads. Fortran was never sexy, never faddy. My research codes from 30+ years ago still compile w/o issue to this day, and run, on my linux laptop. Even using the big endian data files (gfortran has a nice switch for that). I don't really use it actively anymore…
Do you recall specifically why?
Also, isn't C pretty 'time proof'? The only time I've seen old C fail to compile was when dealing with a real relic of a codebase. If memory serves it used the pre-standardisation parameter-declaration syntax:
void my_func(x, y)
{
int x;
long y;
}Earlier quoted context omitted.
wine can also run unmodified windows binaries
Yes and if those windows binaries were from a platform from over 50 years ago then perhaps your snarky quips would come off as intelligent.
My bad, the 21 years difference must be important (somehow?)