[J3] [EXTERNAL] [BULK] Re: Niklaus Wirth

[Damian Rouson]

On Mon, Jan 8, 2024 at 5:03 AM Clune, Thomas L. (GSFC-6101) via J3 <
j3 at mailman.j3-fortran.org> wrote:

> From my (admittedly rather limited) experience, anti-Fortran prejudice was
> quite pronounced in the mid-eighties when I was attending college.
>   Possibly even justified during that era.    My sense is that computer
> science profs never really adapted after that.  They all “knew” what
> Fortran (FORTRAN) was/is, and there were no real forces to revise such
> opinions.  And they then used FORTRAN as the punching bag when teaching
> subsequent generations.  Even at its best, Fortran was not really ever a
> language that would appeal in that profession where shiny/different has a
> higher priority.
>

All true and those priorities are largely set by funding agencies and
tenure/promotion committees that all prioritize revolutionary work (even if
most of it most of it doesn't survive long-term) over evolutionary work
(even if a lot of it would have immediate, widespread, positive impact).


>
> Even in science departments there is pronounced ignorance about modern
> Fortran.  My daughter just completed her PhD in computational chemistry at
> UC Berkeley.    Profs there were dismissive when she pointed out that
> Fortran had OO and such.   She was simply wrong.   (Could be some misogyny
> mixing in with this of course.)
>

Wow. :(

Damian

>
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