Does anyone need Fortran Programmers?

[MikeVV]

This is an intentional rousing post to see what the state of the art in Fortran programming is these days. I wonder if Y2k has brought any fortran programmers out of the woods. I learned how to program using Fortran in 1980 and have been an active mechanical engineer since - I have not written any code using fortran since then because the personal computer and languages like visual basic have taken over (and for good reasons). Many old programs use fortran however. Are these programs being replaced with up-to-date language rewrites or are they being used until they have to be discarded. Who is writing with Fortran these days?

 

[aombr]

Hello MikeVV! As like you, I used to program in Fortran many years ago (about ten years!) but I liked it very much. Some time ago I did discover a special master thesis about cable stayed structures (unlinear displacements) that seems very usefull, but it can't run because one unexpected crash in one IBM sub-routine (I don't have this sub-routine). So, if you can help me, please contact-me by e-mail: orama@geocities.com or visit my HP (

http://www.geocities.com/Eureka/Gold/7933).<br>

Thanks in advance<br>
Orama<br>

 

[MikeVV]

Orama,<br>
<br>
Unfortunately, I do not have access to any old subroutines anymore. It has been 16 years since I wrote any Fortran (WAT-V) code so I've lost the bubble on such resources. I have friends however - what is the subroutine name and function? Maybe I can "pull a rabbit out of my hat." &lt;grin&gt;<br>
<br>
Mike Van Voorhis<br>
MJVanVoorhis@Compuserve.com<br>

 

[shenoy]

Hi Orama and Mike,<br>
I had been a Strong Fortrner too! I still have my old programs for FEM, Suspension Bridges, Designs. I still use them with VB/Pascal Preprocessors & Post Processors. I still Feel that Fortran has many Stright forward techniques like EQUIVALENCE Statement, which is done in a round about way in C++ or Pascal.<br>
If you could tell me What the subroutine does (did for you) I might be able to help you. Was it for Stiffness solution? or Banded Matrix Assembly? email me at roynshenoy@vsnl.com<br>
Regs,<br>
Shenoy.<br>

 

Like everyone here, I learned how to program FORTRAN studying for my Engineering Degree but I chose to pursue computer programming after college. I have used FORTRAN every since then, that is about 10 years ago. Along the way I have learned Object Oriented Pascal, C, C++, PLI etc. I think FORTRAN is one of the most powerful languages! It bypasses all of that other stuff and lets you get to the heart of what you are trying to do! I can count on one hand all the statements needed to do most anything, no other language is like that. I have been doing this so long that it does not matter any more what language is used, you can interface using the linker or link editor. For instance, I write custom CATIA programs. I use C to communicate to my PLI server, called from my FORTRAN user interface. Languages really do not matter it is the people behind the language. Terrible programmers will produce terrible progarms NO MATTER WHAT language is used! Besides, most of what is tauted today is "Techno Fashion", used to promote products not results. <br>
<br>
Rob Kling

 

[gina]

I have been developing Fortran77 code for (14 years) and Fortran90 for 3 years in the Aerospace industry. I like Visual Basic but I like Fortran and C as better for number crunching. Fortran90 has nice built in-functions that work on arrays and support link list and modern data structures. If you are into number crunching I would highly recommend Fortran90. My only complaint is that it<br>
still isn't quite as flexible as<br>
C for data structures (returning pointers to derived types is messy but Fortran90 has come a long way.

 

People think Fortran is unprofessional because Engineers program with it and they are not computer scientists. I am a professional software developer. We use C/C++ and Java where appropriate and Fortan where appropriate. Fortran programs run faster than C programs. Modern Fortran can do anything C can do. It has pointers, structures, etc. HPF (High Performance Fortran) compilers produce code that runs faster than anything else. KAP pre-processors can automatically parallelize Fortran code for multiple processor computers. C language is too ambiguous for many automatic paralellization techniques. Paralell Fortran can run SIMD (Single Instruction Multiple Data) or MIMD (Multiple Instruction Multiple Data). MIMD can transform a problem from the number of items into a problem of the number of generations on a tree. Our civil engineering software &quot;Splash with Ripple-Thru&quot; <A HREF="

http://www.ripple-thru.com"

TARGET="_new">

http://www.ripple-thru.com</A>

uses some imbedded high performance Fortran in the compute engine. Ripple-Thru automatically corrects any design elements effected by an engineering change. That in turn might effect something else. (I.E.; Ripple). We must use the fastest code available and in some places that is Fortran.

 

For 99% of what must be done by your average engineer, the &quot;macro&quot; language VBA (Visual Basic for Applications) in Excel, together with the tools in Excel, have more muscle than they will ever need!! (Actually, much more than enough.) The problem is that none of the books or training that are available were really written for engineers trained to work with Basic, Pascal, C and Fortran.&nbsp;&nbsp;If anyone is interested, we could start a VBA/Excel forum.

 

[pbissett]

Most of the scientific development code for marine studies is developed in FORTRAN, and the large parallel problems in oceanography seem to be best addressed in FORTRAN. Unfortunately, we have had a tremendous amount of difficulties finding qualified people. We need FORTRAN programmers very badly, particularly those with marine or civil engineering skills (Details can be found at <A HREF="

http://www.flenvironmental.org"

TARGET="_new">

http://www.flenvironmental.org</A>).

 

[MikeVV]

I have found that using Excel and VBA is valuable in today's environment.&nbsp;&nbsp;I use Excel to solve most engineering analysis problems on a daily basis.&nbsp;&nbsp;There are a few things that I would like to do and a forum for this topic would be good.<br><br>I am also getting into Linux on my PC.&nbsp;&nbsp;Is there a good Fortran compiler for Linux?

 

[ccrum]

Hey all. I am an RF Engineer who writes propagation analysis software that is used by real world RF Engineers every day to design Cellular telephone networks. My GUI is written in VB but the prediction engine runs in Fortran. It is by far the fastest language available. In fact the models we use were converted to C by one of our competitors. Beside having less optimized code, C could not handle some of the complex math involved in sovling the pysical optics differential equations. The result is a less accurate, larger, and longer running piece of code. The reason they went to C? They had programmers, not engineers writing the code. Too bad for them.

 

[DanTex]

I've used several languages over the years. When it comes to engineering, I go with Fortran 90% of the time. Modern Fortran ( ie 90/95 ) is very powerful. There is very little that I have yet found in languages such as C++ which is useful that is not also in Fortran. Fortran is simple to learn and use, has unmatched math capabilities, has very easy ( and powerful ) string handling and is very fast without having to spend hours &quot;twisting&quot; your coding for runtime efficiency. And... lastly and possibly one of the most important considerations, it is one of if not the most portable language in existance ( definately the most portable by far of all of the currently popular languages ).

I find that most people who claim that Fortran is dead actually know very little about fortran and are buying into the classic &quot;what is popular&quot; syndrome. As others have stated, use the best language for the job.... and there are a LOT of jobs out there where I believe Fortran is the best language.

Check out a simple yet powerful beam analysis program I have posted at:

http://www.dtware.com

It is written using Fortran95. Software called Winteracter is used to provide the GUI.

Dan