I have been to the acm site and cannot locate the article.
Does anyone know how to subscribe if one lives outside of the
Usa and canada?
Cheers
Ian Chivers
-----Original Message-----
From: Fortran 90 List [mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of
Vivek Rao
Sent: 08 January 2005 03:02
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Fortran bashing in ACM Queue magazine
In the December/January 2004-2005 "programming languages" issue of ACM Queue
magazine is an article "How Not to Write Fortran in Any Language", by Donn
Seeley of Wind River Systems. As is often done, Fortran is used as a synonym
for bad programming and is discussed as if no version later than Fortran 77
exists.
The article starts as follows:
'Programmers have debated the merits of different programming languages
since the dawn of programming. Every coder has a favorite general-purpose
programming language, and many have an unfavorite language, too. If the
coder is old enough, often that unfavorite language is Fortran. The world
has seen so much bad Fortran code that the name of the language is now a
synonym for bad coding. Many of us have never seen real Fortran code, but we
know what coders mean when they say, "You can write Fortran in any
language."
I spent a significant part of my career in proximity to Fortran. Believe it
or not, you can write good Fortran, as well as bad Fortran. No one would
want to program in Fortran today, since many better alternatives are
available. But you can write a usable and maintainable program in Fortran in
spite of its many hindrances.'
Such a categorical statement as the sentence beginning with "No one would
want" is too silly to merit detailed rebuttal. No one? "Better" for what?
The rest of the article makes some elementary recommendations about good
programming style, suggesting that good code should avoid clutter, use
chunking, use familiarity, prevent astonishment, and be consistent.
These guidelines can be followed as well in Fortran 90/95 as in any other
language. "Hindrances" such as 6-letter variable names and fixed source
format were removed long ago. Even with it limitations, it is not clear to
me that Fortran 77 is much less readable than other languages of the same
era. At least one can look at a line of F77 code and understand what it
does, which is often not the case in some other languages.
Everything I have written in the message is common knowledge to this group.
I wrote this message because I hope that readers will obtain a copy of the
issue and protest the misinformation to [log in to unmask] and the
editor, Edward Grossman, at [log in to unmask] . I am going to do so. I
will send paper copies of the article to U.S. list members who intend to
write a rebuttal -- please email me your address.
Vivek Rao
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