My first language, I should try and mess with it again. It has been decades since I used it.
hermitcrab•16m ago
I believe it has changed quite a lot, keeping its focus for scientific/engineering computing, but adapting more modern language constructs. I'm not sure how much of the archaic stuff (COMMON blocks, ENTRY points etc) is supported in the more recent standards for backward compatibility.
Frone125•29m ago
It's crazy to think that any programming language is that old.
tasty_freeze•20m ago
As someone who has been programming for nearly 50 years of it, it seems less remarkable.
hotelsacher•29m ago
Happy birthday! I think this has to be the oldest programming language still in use. 70 years is quite an eternity in the sphere of computing. Before Fortran, there was (almost?) nothing but assembler and plug board connectors.
In the mid 90s I used Fortran to model a distillation column in a chemical engineering plant. Here I read that it is still the go to language for nuclear engineering. I am amazed but for some reason happy about this.
hermitcrab•24m ago
"A good FORTRAN programmer can write FORTRAN in any language"
hermitcrab•19m ago
I started off programming in FORTRAN in my first job, 40 years ago. There was a lot of terrible stuff in FORTRAN from a software engineering point of view: COMMON blocks, GOTOs, ENTRY points (to enter a subroutine part way through!), but it was one of the first high level language and language designers had a lot to learn.
jibalt•7m ago
I learned programming in FORTRAN II on an IBM 1620 in 1965.
jmclnx•31m ago
hermitcrab•16m ago