From https://www.theregister.com/2022/04/13/climate_mit_fortran/

|CLiMA made the determination that old climate models, many of which were
|built 50 years ago and coded in Fortran, had to go if there was going to be
|any progress toward better climate models. Now that he's working at MIT on
|the CGC project, he's realized that "traditional climate models are in a
|language [MIT] students can't even read."

Can't read the latest symbol-based (instead of word-based) language
without lots of study ? Ok, that's a fair thing to say.

But Fortran ??? Wow.

(And this is MIT!).

Simon.

--
Simon Clubley, clubley@remove_me.eisner.decus.org-Earth.UFP
Walking destinations on a map are further away than they appear.

On 4/13/22 2:10 PM, Simon Clubley wrote:
> Can't read the latest symbol-based (instead of word-based) language
> without lots of study ? Ok, that's a fair thing to say.

There are a lot of things that can't be done at one point in time or
another. The trick is to learn them so that you can do them.

I can see how / why an older long out of vogue language can't be read by
newer / younger people. But that ignorance, as in lack of knowledge,
doesn't preclude people from learning.

There is a point in every person's life when they can't read their
native language. They must learn it. This is the natural order of things.

> But Fortran ??? Wow.

~shrug~ out of vogue language

--
Grant. . . .
unix || die

On 4/13/22 18:12, Grant Taylor wrote:
> On 4/13/22 2:10 PM, Simon Clubley wrote:
>> Can't read the latest symbol-based (instead of word-based) language
>> without lots of study ? Ok, that's a fair thing to say.
>
> There are a lot of things that can't be done at one point in time or
> another.  The trick is to learn them so that you can do them.
>
> I can see how / why an older long out of vogue language can't be read by
> newer / younger people.  But that ignorance, as in lack of knowledge,
> doesn't preclude people from learning.
>
> There is a point in every person's life when they can't read their
> native language.  They must learn it.  This is the natural order of things.
>
>> But Fortran ??? Wow.
>
> ~shrug~  out of vogue language

I would be more inclined to think the story is bs. Fortran is a
trivial language. Took me all of about three days to learn it
(on an IBM Mainframe) back in 1980. You might not be able to
understand the task being done but the flow and function of the
the program would not be difficult.

bill

On 4/13/22 3:10 PM, Simon Clubley wrote:
> From https://www.theregister.com/2022/04/13/climate_mit_fortran/
>
> |CLiMA made the determination that old climate models, many of which were
> |built 50 years ago and coded in Fortran, had to go if there was going to be
> |any progress toward better climate models. Now that he's working at MIT on
> |the CGC project, he's realized that "traditional climate models are in a
> |language [MIT] students can't even read."
>
> Can't read the latest symbol-based (instead of word-based) language
> without lots of study ? Ok, that's a fair thing to say.
>
> But Fortran ??? Wow.

Um, the code written in the 1960s and 1970s as mentioned in the article
was probably not Fortran 77 or even Fortran 66. Unless I'm in a Star
Trek episode and 1977 actually came before the 1960s and most of the
1970s. Fortran IV was limited to 6-character identifiers and used
Hollerith constants. Functions and subroutines were not available so you
would tend to see programs tens of thousands of lines long with GOTO all
over the place. It was unreadable to me when learning VAX Fortran in
1983, so I can sympathize with someone who knows C++ or Java trying to
make sense of it now.

On 4/13/2022 6:37 PM, Bill Gunshannon wrote:
> On 4/13/22 18:12, Grant Taylor wrote:
>> On 4/13/22 2:10 PM, Simon Clubley wrote:
>>> Can't read the latest symbol-based (instead of word-based) language
>>> without lots of study ? Ok, that's a fair thing to say.
>>
>> There are a lot of things that can't be done at one point in time or
>> another.  The trick is to learn them so that you can do them.
>>
>> I can see how / why an older long out of vogue language can't be read
>> by newer / younger people.  But that ignorance, as in lack of
>> knowledge, doesn't preclude people from learning.
>>
>> There is a point in every person's life when they can't read their
>> native language.  They must learn it.  This is the natural order of
>> things.
>>
>>> But Fortran ??? Wow.
>>
>> ~shrug~  out of vogue language
>
> I would be more inclined to think the story is bs.  Fortran is a
> trivial language. Took me all of about three days to learn it
> (on an IBM Mainframe) back in 1980.  You might not be able to
> understand the task being done but the flow and function of the
> the program would not be difficult.

I agree.

If the code is actually very old then it must be Fortran
77 or 66.

If someone can program aka understand at least one
static typed compiled language *and* understand the
math behind it then they should be able to read the
code just fine.

Writing new code may require a little training.

And newer Fortran can be a lot more complex.

But as described it should be very readable.

Interesting though that they picked Julia. Many
sees it as an upcoming language for stuff like this,
but it is still a rather bold choice.

Arne

On 4/13/2022 7:04 PM, Craig A. Berry wrote:
>
> On 4/13/22 3:10 PM, Simon Clubley wrote:
>>  From https://www.theregister.com/2022/04/13/climate_mit_fortran/
>>
>> |CLiMA made the determination that old climate models, many of which were
>> |built 50 years ago and coded in Fortran, had to go if there was going
>> to be
>> |any progress toward better climate models. Now that he's working at
>> MIT on
>> |the CGC project, he's realized that "traditional climate models are in a
>> |language [MIT] students can't even read."
>>
>> Can't read the latest symbol-based (instead of word-based) language
>> without lots of study ? Ok, that's a fair thing to say.
>>
>> But Fortran ??? Wow.
>
> Um, the code written in the 1960s and 1970s as mentioned in the article
> was probably not Fortran 77 or even Fortran 66.  Unless I'm in a Star
> Trek episode and 1977 actually came before the 1960s and most of the
> 1970s.  Fortran IV was limited to 6-character identifiers and used
> Hollerith constants. Functions and subroutines were not available so you
> would tend to see programs tens of thousands of lines long with GOTO all
> over the place.  It was unreadable to me when learning VAX Fortran in
> 1983, so I can sympathize with someone who knows C++ or Java trying to
> make sense of it now.

Fortran 66 was available for most of that period.

Fortran IV is mostly the same as Fortran 66.

And functions and subroutines was (per public sources - before
my time) added in Fortran II in 1958.

So not quite as bad.

Anything text sucked big time in Fortran IV/66 but climate
model should not be impacted by that.

Arne

On Wednesday, April 13, 2022 at 4:10:22 PM UTC-4, Simon Clubley wrote:
> From https://www.theregister.com/2022/04/13/climate_mit_fortran/
>
> |CLiMA made the determination that old climate models, many of which were
> |built 50 years ago and coded in Fortran, had to go if there was going to be
> |any progress toward better climate models. Now that he's working at MIT on
> |the CGC project, he's realized that "traditional climate models are in a
> |language [MIT] students can't even read."
>
> Can't read the latest symbol-based (instead of word-based) language
> without lots of study ? Ok, that's a fair thing to say.
>
> But Fortran ??? Wow.
>
> (And this is MIT!).
>
> Simon.
> , b
> --
> Simon Clubley, clubley@remove_me.eisner.decus.org-Earth.UFP
> Walking destinations on a map are further away than they appear.
Simon,

I agree wholeheartedly with Bill.

FORTRAN, specifically ANSI FORTRAN-66/77 is a very simple language to lean by present standards.

If the story is not total BS, particularly from MIT students, it is a source of despair.

Today, it is no problem to do a module by module rewrite of FORTRAN into C. Frankly, it has not been a serious difficulty since the time of the original VAX FORTRAN, nearly a half century ago.

I would suggest they contact someone who is familiar with the subject matter.

- Bob Gezelter, http://www.rlgsc.com

On Wednesday, April 13, 2022 at 7:05:00 PM UTC-4, Craig A. Berry wrote:
> On 4/13/22 3:10 PM, Simon Clubley wrote:
> > From https://www.theregister.com/2022/04/13/climate_mit_fortran/
> >
> > |CLiMA made the determination that old climate models, many of which were
> > |built 50 years ago and coded in Fortran, had to go if there was going to be
> > |any progress toward better climate models. Now that he's working at MIT on
> > |the CGC project, he's realized that "traditional climate models are in a
> > |language [MIT] students can't even read."
> >
> > Can't read the latest symbol-based (instead of word-based) language
> > without lots of study ? Ok, that's a fair thing to say.
> >
> > But Fortran ??? Wow.
> Um, the code written in the 1960s and 1970s as mentioned in the article
> was probably not Fortran 77 or even Fortran 66. Unless I'm in a Star
> Trek episode and 1977 actually came before the 1960s and most of the
> 1970s. Fortran IV was limited to 6-character identifiers and used
> Hollerith constants. Functions and subroutines were not available so you
> would tend to see programs tens of thousands of lines long with GOTO all
> over the place. It was unreadable to me when learning VAX Fortran in
> 1983, so I can sympathize with someone who knows C++ or Java trying to
> make sense of it now.
Craig,

FORTRAN II (IBM 1620, circa 1960, 20K digits of storage) had full subroutines and functions.

Admittedly, many of these codes were not written to modern engineering standards, but one can decode them. Been there, done that (both in modern times, and when I was an undergraduate).

- Bob Gezelter, http://www.rlgsc.com

On 4/13/2022 7:04 PM, Craig A. Berry wrote:
>
> On 4/13/22 3:10 PM, Simon Clubley wrote:
>> From https://www.theregister.com/2022/04/13/climate_mit_fortran/
>>
>> |CLiMA made the determination that old climate models, many of which were
>> |built 50 years ago and coded in Fortran, had to go if there was going to be
>> |any progress toward better climate models. Now that he's working at MIT on
>> |the CGC project, he's realized that "traditional climate models are in a
>> |language [MIT] students can't even read."
>>
>> Can't read the latest symbol-based (instead of word-based) language
>> without lots of study ? Ok, that's a fair thing to say.
>>
>> But Fortran ??? Wow.
>
> Um, the code written in the 1960s and 1970s as mentioned in the article
> was probably not Fortran 77 or even Fortran 66. Unless I'm in a Star
> Trek episode and 1977 actually came before the 1960s and most of the
> 1970s. Fortran IV was limited to 6-character identifiers and used
> Hollerith constants. Functions and subroutines were not available so you
> would tend to see programs tens of thousands of lines long with GOTO all
> over the place. It was unreadable to me when learning VAX Fortran in
> 1983, so I can sympathize with someone who knows C++ or Java trying to
> make sense of it now.

What's so hard about GOTo?

Yeah, it can produce disgusting code, but the is a difference between "able to
read" and "able to follow".

--
David Froble Tel: 724-529-0450
Dave Froble Enterprises, Inc. E-Mail: davef@tsoft-inc.com
DFE Ultralights, Inc.
170 Grimplin Road
Vanderbilt, PA 15486

On Wednesday, April 13, 2022 at 1:10:22 PM UTC-7, Simon Clubley wrote:
> From https://www.theregister.com/2022/04/13/climate_mit_fortran/
>
> |CLiMA made the determination that old climate models, many of which were
> |built 50 years ago and coded in Fortran, had to go if there was going to be
> |any progress toward better climate models. Now that he's working at MIT on
> |the CGC project, he's realized that "traditional climate models are in a
> |language [MIT] students can't even read."

I can believe that they can't write it, but it isn't all that hard to read, or learn to read.

There have been languages over the years that I knew I could read, but didn't (yet)
know well enough to write.

Old Fortran has oddities like arithmetic ifs and computed gotos (I was told logical IFs didn't show up until IV). My roommate is college had a cursory knowledge of Fortran from his engineering classes, but had never heard of equivalence statements. I got flummoxed the first (and only) time I encountered alternate return points in a function call. They are as nasty as assigned gotos.

I helped a co-worker once suss out the character manipulation being done Fortran on a CDC machine (10 6-bit characters stuffed into a 60 bit word).

On 4/13/22 6:54 PM, Bob Gezelter wrote:
> On Wednesday, April 13, 2022 at 7:05:00 PM UTC-4, Craig A. Berry wrote:
>> On 4/13/22 3:10 PM, Simon Clubley wrote:
>>> From https://www.theregister.com/2022/04/13/climate_mit_fortran/
>>>
>>> |CLiMA made the determination that old climate models, many of which were
>>> |built 50 years ago and coded in Fortran, had to go if there was going to be
>>> |any progress toward better climate models. Now that he's working at MIT on
>>> |the CGC project, he's realized that "traditional climate models are in a
>>> |language [MIT] students can't even read."
>>>
>>> Can't read the latest symbol-based (instead of word-based) language
>>> without lots of study ? Ok, that's a fair thing to say.
>>>
>>> But Fortran ??? Wow.
>> Um, the code written in the 1960s and 1970s as mentioned in the article
>> was probably not Fortran 77 or even Fortran 66. Unless I'm in a Star
>> Trek episode and 1977 actually came before the 1960s and most of the
>> 1970s. Fortran IV was limited to 6-character identifiers and used
>> Hollerith constants. Functions and subroutines were not available so you
>> would tend to see programs tens of thousands of lines long with GOTO all
>> over the place. It was unreadable to me when learning VAX Fortran in
>> 1983, so I can sympathize with someone who knows C++ or Java trying to
>> make sense of it now.
> Craig,
>
> FORTRAN II (IBM 1620, circa 1960, 20K digits of storage) had full subroutines and functions.

OK. I read the Wikipedia article wrong, specifically with regard to
functions and subroutines. The fact they had them doesn't mean they
were used.

> Admittedly, many of these codes were not written to modern
> engineering standards, but one can decode them. Been there, done that (both in
> modern times, and when I was an undergraduate).

Right. And of course you can decode a 40,000-line program with no
comments and 6-digit identifiers. But it's work. Arguably not worth
the effort 10 years after they were written, much less 50.

> Fortran 66 was available for most of that period.
>
> Fortran IV is mostly the same as Fortran 66.
>
> And functions and subroutines was (per public sources - before
> my time) added in Fortran II in 1958.
>
> So not quite as bad.
>
> Anything text sucked big time in Fortran IV/66 but climate
> model should not be impacted by that.
>

It’s possible that, just as today, “seasoned” (I.e. older, perhaps set in
their ways) programmers in the 1960’s and 1970’s may not have used
new-dangled features like IF/THEN/ELSE or more modern loop constructs. And
may actually have liked assigned or computed GOTOs, three-branch IF, etc.

Or they may have been constrained by out-of-date compilers on their
platforms.

"Craig A. Berry" <craigberry@nospam.mac.com> writes:

> On 4/13/22 6:54 PM, Bob Gezelter wrote:

>> FORTRAN II (IBM 1620, circa 1960, 20K digits of storage) had full
>> subroutines and functions.

> OK. I read the Wikipedia article wrong, specifically with regard to
> functions and subroutines. The fact they had them doesn't mean they
> were used.

>> Admittedly, many of these codes were not written to modern engineering
>> standards, but one can decode them. Been there, done that (both in modern
>> times, and when I was an undergraduate).

> Right. And of course you can decode a 40,000-line program with no
> comments and 6-digit identifiers. But it's work. Arguably not worth
> the effort 10 years after they were written, much less 50.

FORTRAN IV was my first language, on an IBM 1401, in 1969. Functions and
subroutines were actively encouraged.

If you knew what you were talking about you might be dangerous.

--
Rich Alderson news@alderson.users.panix.com
Audendum est, et veritas investiganda; quam etiamsi non assequamur,
omnino tamen proprius, quam nunc sumus, ad eam perveniemus.
--Galen

On Wednesday, April 13, 2022 at 6:49:05 PM UTC-7, Galen wrote:
> > Fortran 66 was available for most of that period.
> >
> > Fortran IV is mostly the same as Fortran 66.
> >
> > And functions and subroutines was (per public sources - before
> > my time) added in Fortran II in 1958.
> >
> > So not quite as bad.
> >
> > Anything text sucked big time in Fortran IV/66 but climate
> > model should not be impacted by that.
> >
> It’s possible that, just as today, “seasoned” (I.e. older, perhaps set in
> their ways) programmers in the 1960’s and 1970’s may not have used
> new-dangled features like IF/THEN/ELSE or more modern loop constructs. And
> may actually have liked assigned or computed GOTOs, three-branch IF, etc.
>
> Or they may have been constrained by out-of-date compilers on their
> platforms.

Here's a statement from NASA GISS regarding Model E. Which has been open source for years, now, if you want to take a look. Conceptually like most such models they're simple, pave the earth with pizza boxes stacked about 20 high these days, IIRC. The pizza boxes shrink and the number of them that are stacked increase as supercomputers increase in power, improving resolution. Understanding the model physics is, ummm, a tad more complex :). Also some of that increasing power generally is devoted to more complex physical modeling which works against how many more pizza boxes you can have in your model in reasonable time.

Anyway, after a prologue pointing out that it has been around awhile:

"While much of the subsequent reworking of the model has led to a reduction in these historical influences, some parts of the model still hark back to the days of punch cards, FORTRAN 66 and line printer output. A charitable interpretation would be that while embracing the new (FORTRAN 90/95, multi-processing, netcdf, etc.), we endeavour to maintain some of the more harmless GISS traditions (which some might call eccentricities) in a spirit of continuity with those who have previously worked on the model. On the other hand, some of those early decisions (for instance regarding diagnostics, or conservation properties) turned out to be very far-sighted and are a principle reason why the GISS series of models continue to play a useful and important role in the world of GCM simulations."

On 4/13/2022 8:55 PM, Dave Froble wrote:
> On 4/13/2022 7:04 PM, Craig A. Berry wrote:
>> On 4/13/22 3:10 PM, Simon Clubley wrote:
>>>  From https://www.theregister.com/2022/04/13/climate_mit_fortran/
>>> |CLiMA made the determination that old climate models, many of which
>>> were
>>> |built 50 years ago and coded in Fortran, had to go if there was
>>> going to be
>>> |any progress toward better climate models. Now that he's working at
>>> MIT on
>>> |the CGC project, he's realized that "traditional climate models are
>>> in a
>>> |language [MIT] students can't even read."
>>>
>>> Can't read the latest symbol-based (instead of word-based) language
>>> without lots of study ? Ok, that's a fair thing to say.
>>>
>>> But Fortran ??? Wow.
>>
>> Um, the code written in the 1960s and 1970s as mentioned in the article
>> was probably not Fortran 77 or even Fortran 66.  Unless I'm in a Star
>> Trek episode and 1977 actually came before the 1960s and most of the
>> 1970s.  Fortran IV was limited to 6-character identifiers and used
>> Hollerith constants. Functions and subroutines were not available so you
>> would tend to see programs tens of thousands of lines long with GOTO all
>> over the place.  It was unreadable to me when learning VAX Fortran in
>> 1983, so I can sympathize with someone who knows C++ or Java trying to
>> make sense of it now.
>
> What's so hard about GOTo?
>
> Yeah, it can produce disgusting code, but the is a difference between
> "able to read" and "able to follow".

A few GOTO's used in a structured is usually not a problem.

A lot of GOTO's jumping forth and back usually makes the code
very hard to follow.

Arne

On 4/13/2022 9:48 PM, Galen wrote:
>
>> Fortran 66 was available for most of that period.
>>
>> Fortran IV is mostly the same as Fortran 66.
>>
>> And functions and subroutines was (per public sources - before
>> my time) added in Fortran II in 1958.
>>
>> So not quite as bad.
>>
>> Anything text sucked big time in Fortran IV/66 but climate
>> model should not be impacted by that.
>
> It’s possible that, just as today, “seasoned” (I.e. older, perhaps set in
> their ways) programmers in the 1960’s and 1970’s may not have used
> new-dangled features like IF/THEN/ELSE or more modern loop constructs. And
> may actually have liked assigned or computed GOTOs, three-branch IF, etc.

Block if else was new in 77.

Arne

On 4/13/2022 9:27 PM, Craig A. Berry wrote:
>
> On 4/13/22 6:54 PM, Bob Gezelter wrote:
>> On Wednesday, April 13, 2022 at 7:05:00 PM UTC-4, Craig A. Berry wrote:
>>> On 4/13/22 3:10 PM, Simon Clubley wrote:
>>>>  From https://www.theregister.com/2022/04/13/climate_mit_fortran/
>>>>
>>>> |CLiMA made the determination that old climate models, many of which
>>>> were
>>>> |built 50 years ago and coded in Fortran, had to go if there was
>>>> going to be
>>>> |any progress toward better climate models. Now that he's working at
>>>> MIT on
>>>> |the CGC project, he's realized that "traditional climate models are
>>>> in a
>>>> |language [MIT] students can't even read."
>>>>
>>>> Can't read the latest symbol-based (instead of word-based) language
>>>> without lots of study ? Ok, that's a fair thing to say.
>>>>
>>>> But Fortran ??? Wow.
>>> Um, the code written in the 1960s and 1970s as mentioned in the article
>>> was probably not Fortran 77 or even Fortran 66. Unless I'm in a Star
>>> Trek episode and 1977 actually came before the 1960s and most of the
>>> 1970s. Fortran IV was limited to 6-character identifiers and used
>>> Hollerith constants. Functions and subroutines were not available so you
>>> would tend to see programs tens of thousands of lines long with GOTO all
>>> over the place. It was unreadable to me when learning VAX Fortran in
>>> 1983, so I can sympathize with someone who knows C++ or Java trying to
>>> make sense of it now.
>> Craig,
>>
>> FORTRAN II (IBM 1620, circa 1960, 20K digits of storage) had full
>> subroutines and functions.
>
> OK.  I read the Wikipedia article wrong, specifically with regard to
> functions and subroutines.  The fact they had them doesn't mean they
> were used.

I am pretty sure that they were a hit.

:-)

Arne

On Wednesday, April 13, 2022 at 6:27:57 PM UTC-7, Craig A. Berry wrote:
> On 4/13/22 6:54 PM, Bob Gezelter wrote:

(snip)

> > FORTRAN II (IBM 1620, circa 1960, 20K digits of storage) had
> > full subroutines and functions.

> OK. I read the Wikipedia article wrong, specifically with regard to
> functions and subroutines. The fact they had them doesn't mean they
> were used.

They were used, but there are plenty of stories about very big subroutines,
so, looking at the code, you might think they didn't know about them.

I am sometimes surprised at how, even as computers get faster, there
is so much work to make subroutines calls more efficient. One reason
for the large subroutines might be that subroutine calls were slower in the
early days. Though some compilers generate less efficient code as
subroutines get larger.

On 4/13/22 19:51, Bob Gezelter wrote:
> On Wednesday, April 13, 2022 at 4:10:22 PM UTC-4, Simon Clubley wrote:
>> From https://www.theregister.com/2022/04/13/climate_mit_fortran/
>>
>> |CLiMA made the determination that old climate models, many of which were
>> |built 50 years ago and coded in Fortran, had to go if there was going to be
>> |any progress toward better climate models. Now that he's working at MIT on
>> |the CGC project, he's realized that "traditional climate models are in a
>> |language [MIT] students can't even read."
>>
>> Can't read the latest symbol-based (instead of word-based) language
>> without lots of study ? Ok, that's a fair thing to say.
>>
>> But Fortran ??? Wow.
>>
>> (And this is MIT!).
>>
>> Simon.
>> , b
>> --
>> Simon Clubley, clubley@remove_me.eisner.decus.org-Earth.UFP
>> Walking destinations on a map are further away than they appear.
> Simon,
>
> I agree wholeheartedly with Bill.
>
> FORTRAN, specifically ANSI FORTRAN-66/77 is a very simple language to lean by present standards.
>
> If the story is not total BS, particularly from MIT students, it is a source of despair.
>
> Today, it is no problem to do a module by module rewrite of FORTRAN into C. Frankly, it has not been a serious difficulty since the time of the original VAX FORTRAN, nearly a half century ago.

Or you run it thru F2C and save the time for other tasks. The big
question would be why would they be converting it to anything?
There is nothing wrong with Fortran unless the task changed from
engineering to accounts receivable. And there are plenty of compilers
still available,

>
> I would suggest they contact someone who is familiar with the subject matter.
>
> - Bob Gezelter, http://www.rlgsc.com

bill

On 4/13/22 22:01, Rich Alderson wrote:
> "Craig A. Berry" <craigberry@nospam.mac.com> writes:
>
>> On 4/13/22 6:54 PM, Bob Gezelter wrote:
>
>>> FORTRAN II (IBM 1620, circa 1960, 20K digits of storage) had full
>>> subroutines and functions.
>
>> OK. I read the Wikipedia article wrong, specifically with regard to
>> functions and subroutines. The fact they had them doesn't mean they
>> were used.
>
>>> Admittedly, many of these codes were not written to modern engineering
>>> standards, but one can decode them. Been there, done that (both in modern
>>> times, and when I was an undergraduate).
>
>> Right. And of course you can decode a 40,000-line program with no
>> comments and 6-digit identifiers. But it's work. Arguably not worth
>> the effort 10 years after they were written, much less 50.
>
> FORTRAN IV was my first language, on an IBM 1401, in 1969. Functions and
> subroutines were actively encouraged.
>
> If you knew what you were talking about you might be dangerous.
>

Wow, were you ever lucky. I did 1401 in 1971 and all we got was
Autocoder. I'll bet you even had disks.

bill

On 4/13/22 9:16 PM, Arne Vajhøj wrote:
> On 4/13/2022 9:27 PM, Craig A. Berry wrote:
>>
>> On 4/13/22 6:54 PM, Bob Gezelter wrote:

>>> FORTRAN II (IBM 1620, circa 1960, 20K digits of storage) had full
>>> subroutines and functions.
>>
>> OK.  I read the Wikipedia article wrong, specifically with regard to
>> functions and subroutines.  The fact they had them doesn't mean they
>> were used.
>
> I am pretty sure that they were a hit.

I'm 100% sure that the code I had to read didn't have them.

On 4/14/22 08:28, Craig A. Berry wrote:
> On 4/13/22 9:16 PM, Arne Vajhøj wrote:
>> On 4/13/2022 9:27 PM, Craig A. Berry wrote:
>>>
>>> On 4/13/22 6:54 PM, Bob Gezelter wrote:
>
>>>> FORTRAN II (IBM 1620, circa 1960, 20K digits of storage) had full
>>>> subroutines and functions.
>>>
>>> OK.  I read the Wikipedia article wrong, specifically with regard to
>>> functions and subroutines.  The fact they had them doesn't mean they
>>> were used.
>>
>> I am pretty sure that they were a hit.
>
> I'm 100% sure that the code I had to read didn't have them.

From my experience, the biggest problem with legacy Fortran was that
it was not written by programmers at all but by engineers who just
happened to have one course in Fortran and nothing else computer
related.

bill

On Thursday, April 14, 2022 at 8:42:04 AM UTC-4, Bill Gunshannon wrote:
> From my experience, the biggest problem with legacy Fortran was that
> it was not written by programmers at all but by engineers who just
> happened to have one course in Fortran and nothing else computer
> related.
>

I've seen Python like that.

In article <jbqhg3Fl8soU1@mid.individual.net>,
Bill Gunshannon <bill.gunshannon@gmail.com> wrote:
>On 4/13/22 19:51, Bob Gezelter wrote:
>> If the story is not total BS, particularly from MIT students, it is a source of despair.
>>
>> Today, it is no problem to do a module by module rewrite of FORTRAN into C. Frankly, it has not been a serious difficulty since the time of
>the original VAX FORTRAN, nearly a half century ago.
>
>Or you run it thru F2C and save the time for other tasks. The big
>question would be why would they be converting it to anything?
>There is nothing wrong with Fortran unless the task changed from
>engineering to accounts receivable. And there are plenty of compilers
>still available,

Hazarding a guess after reading the original article, it seems
that they wanted to expand the model significantly to include
microclimates, _and_ they wanted to change it to show the
interaction between small-scale and large-scale models (the
existing code only supports large-scale models). My suspicion
is that the original code, which is probably some blend of
FORTRAN IV and -66/-77 is probably noodle code written by
generations of scienists with little or no formal training in
software. In other words, it's probably badly written and
badly maintained.

Expanding it in the way they wanted would probably amount to a
near-total rewrite anyway (imagine a plethora of seemingly
unrelated arrays all sized to some base assumptions they'd like
to change; the article mentioned something about smallest
geographic area supported by the current model and how they want
to expand that by a couple of orders or magnitude; not to
mention implementing the large/small scale stuff _de novo_). At
that point, you have choices: 1) keep the ancient FORTRAN
dialect, 2) rewrite it in modern FORTRAN, or 3) pick another
language.

If you're basically gutting the thing anyway, why bother with
the archaic dialect? Once you're making a choice between (2)
and (3), one is already choosing between a modern FORTRAN
dialect that's essentially another language anyway, and
something else. That is, if converting to (say) FORTRAN 2018,
that's already sufficiently different that there's little
practical difference between (2) and (3). And once that's
established, one can pick whatever one likes.

Put another way, I think it's less an issue that "students can't
understand FORTRAN" and more "the situation was such that we
didn't have to stick with an ancient dialect of FORTRAN, and oh,
by the way, now we don't need to teach kids FORTRAN IV anymore."

As an aside, it's kind of a shame that SISAL never took off.

- Dan C.