[J3] What is Jeopardy?

[Holcomb, Katherine A (kah3f)]

Supercomputing was virtual this year but it still seemed impossible to miss at least one dig at Fortran.  I assume many on this list attended at least some sessions.  The keynote was by an atmospheric scientist and one of the questions in the chat was a belligerent "Do you still use ancient Fortran?"  His answer was along the lines of "it's hard to beat Fortran but we often use DSLs."   The CS types know nothing about it and think it's still Fortran 77 (or maybe 66 or Watfor or Fortran IV depending on their age, I suppose).  Also I wasn't sure what he meant other than perhaps Matlab since, as noted, Fortran is sort of a DSL, but he didn't elaborate.

I have spent a number of years teaching, both informally and formally, programming to mostly beginners in sciences and engineering, including six summers teaching a "bootcamp" for environmental and Earth sciences students.  Most students have a hard enough time with Python and compiled languages are really difficult for the majority.  I made the bootcamp attendees learn Fortran (in the final two sessions I allowed them to substitute C++ if they already knew Fortran) and most would run screaming from compiled languages as quickly as possible.

As part of my job duties I'm also working with a research group that wanted code translated from Fortran to Python.  Didn't want to learn Fortran (nor C/C++ for that matter).  Python is godawful slow but they tolerate that to avoid compiled language.  I'm not sure what my point is here other than that increasingly it seems that scientists try to hire computer scientists, or at least CS students, to do their programming for them if they need compiled language and of course they want to use C++.  I see that as the biggest risk to Fortran.

-- 
Katherine Holcomb 
UVA Research Computing   https://www.rc.virginia.edu
kah3f at virginia.edu  434-982-5948

On 12/10/20, 4:10 PM, "J3 on behalf of Bill Long via J3" <j3-bounces at mailman.j3-fortran.org on behalf of j3 at mailman.j3-fortran.org> wrote:

    Fortran has evolved into what is essentially a DSL for HPC.  It is heavily used in areas like computational chemistry and physics, and for weather/climate modeling (which you could argue is basically computational physics/fluid dynamics).    Given the HPC connection, it is used most heavily at sites with supercomputers, like the DOE/DOD labs in the US and national facilities in places like Switzerland and Scotland.   If you work at a DOE lab and have influence there, the best way to help Fortran is to persuade your colleagues to start or continue using Fortran for their work. And maybe  engage in information transfer, such as teaching a class or tutorial (or hire Damian to do that - he’s reputed to be good at this). 
    
    Cheers,
    Bill
    
    
    > On Dec 10, 2020, at 10:49 AM, Ondřej Čertík via J3 <j3 at mailman.j3-fortran.org> wrote:
    > 
    > On Thu, Dec 10, 2020, at 6:22 AM, Clune, Thomas L. (GSFC-6101) via J3 wrote:
    >> 
    >> Last night’s episode had the category “Programming Languages”.   We 
    >> should feel slighted.    C,  Python, Java sure.   HTML and Basic, ugh.  
    >> But Fortran was not on the list.  
    > 
    > Fortran is in jeopardy. So I think that's fair.
    > 
    > If we don't like it, then let's fix it. That's why I joined the committee, because I don't like that the situation is dire and I am doing what I can to help.
    > 
    > Ondrej
    
    Bill Long                                                                       longb at hpe.com
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