[J3] Performance Portability and Fortran: Making Fortran cool again

[Bill Long]

> On Jan 15, 2019, at 7:32 PM, Gary Klimowicz via J3 <j3 at mailman.j3-fortran.org> wrote:
> 
>  
> I'm thinking that there are a few important things Fortran has that the others don't:
> 	• Decades of code bases that continue to work and whose performance improves as compiler and hardware technology improves

In other words, a long track record. If you want to develop a code that will still be running decades into the future, Fortran is the only rational choice. 

And it is a language that evolves to keep up with HPC hardware trends.  

> 	• A DSL (domain-specific language) for array operations

I would go as far as to say Fortran is a DSL for HPC and Scientific Computing.  (Though those are probably fighting words for some in the audience.)

> 	• Coarrays and teams

I would say this as “Distributed-memory parallel programming built into the language syntax”

> 	• DO CONCURRENT

Agree. 

> 	• Strong rules about data aliasing (supporting optimizations like vectorization)

Also Agree. 

>  
> I'm sure I'm missing some obvious things.



Bill Long                                                                       longb at cray.com
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