Well done Van,
I very nicely phrased responce, as one would expect from a language design
expert and a professional user.
On Thu, 14 Jun 2001 18:15:45 -0700 Van Snyder <[log in to unmask]>
wrote:
> Gary Hargraves wrote:
>
> > The heavy-hitters on this list, and Lahey, (you know who you are) might
> > consider a letter to the editor of the NY Times.
>
> > The object: to prompt Mr Lohr (or someone more knowledgeable perhaps) toward
> > a follow up article on the current use of fortran amongst the
> > number-crunching (dare I suggest it) elite.
>
> OK, so I've sent the following letter to the editor of New York Times.
>
> --
> What fraction of Americans believe | Van Snyder
> Wrestling is real and NASA is fake? | [log in to unmask]
> Any alleged opinions are my own and have not been approved or disapproved
> by JPL, CalTech, NASA, Dan Goldin, George Bush, the Pope, or anybody else.
> --
>
> The article "Pioneers of the 'Fortran' Programming Language" by Steve
> Lohr, that appeared in the Technology section of the 13 June issue, was
> interesting and well written. It belonged in the "Ancient History"
> section, however. Subsequent to the events that Mr. Lohr describes,
> three international standards have been published, and a fourth is
> under development.
>
> Fortran isn't just "mentioned wistfully" and programming hasn't all
> "moved to generations of new tools". In fact, more people are using
> Fortran now than at any time in the past -- but a smaller fraction
> of programmers are using Fortran now than at any time in the past.
> The market is growing, but the market share is shrinking.
>
> All of the desirable attributes that Mr. Lohr mentions in the article --
> speed, ease of writing, and ease of reading -- are still true of the
> latest (1995) standard, and will remain true in the 2002 standard.
>
> Maybe somebody from your "Technology" department, instead of your
> "Ancient History" department, could write an article about the current
> state of Fortran.
--
Lawrie Schonfelder
Honorary Senior Fellow, University of Liverpool
Home: 1 Marine Park, West Kirby, Wirral, UK CH48 5HN
Phone: +44(151)625 6986
|