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Why do physicists still use Fortran?

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Why do physicists still use Fortran?

It is often said that the reason Fortran is still used is that it is fast. The benchmarks where Fortran is much slower than C++ involve processes where most of the time is spent reading and writing data, for which Fortran is known to be slow. So, altogether, C++ is just as fast as Fortran and often a bit faster.

What is the advantages of Fortran?

Fortran supports Numerical analysis and scientific computation. Fortran supports the Generic and Structured programming. Fortran supports Array and the Modular programming.

Is Fortran used in physics?

Fortran is the dominant programming language used in scientific applications. It is therefore important for physics (or engineering) students to be able to read and modify Fortran code.

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What are the flaws of FORTRAN?

Drawbacks of FORTRAN 77

  • FORTRAN 77 awkward `punched card’ or `fixed form’ source format.
  • Lack of inherent parallelism.
  • Lack of dynamic storage.
  • Lack of numeric portability.
  • Lack of user-defined data structures.
  • Lack of explicit recursion.
  • Reliance on unsafe storage and sequence association features.

What is the advantage of Cobol?

Advantages of COBOL COBOL language can handle massive data processing. It is one of the primarily used high-level programming languages. Fully compatible with its past versions. COBOL language can handle massive data processing.

Is Fortran still useful?

Fortran is still used in high-performance computing. Moreover, it’s still evolving. Fortran is such an old programming language, that most people assume it isn’t used anymore.

What is the difference between Fortran and Cobol?

FORTRAN stands for FORmula TRANslation. This clearly means that it is aimed at engineering or scientific purposes. COBOL, on the other hand, stands for Common Business-Oriented Language and is meant to be used for business-related tasks such as data processing.

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Is it easier to learn FORTRAN or C++?

Overall, I think Fortran is easier to learn than C++. Fortran 90 and C are very similar, but Fortran is easier to code in for reasons I will discuss. C is a fairly primitive languages, so physicists who go the C++ route tend to look into object oriented coding.

Why is so much code written in Fortran?

Given the long history of Fortran, it is no surprise that a large amount of legacy code in physics is written in Fortran. Physicists usually try to minimize the amount of coding they do, therefore, if legacy code exists they will use it.

Will we still be using Fortran in 5 years?

In a survey of Fortran users at the 2014 Supercomputing Convention, 100\% of respondents said they thought they would still be using Fortran in five years. The survey also showed that a large number of people were using mixed code with C overwhelmingly the second language (90\%).

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What is the difference between C and Fortran 90?

Fortran 90 and C are very similar, but Fortran is easier to code in for reasons I will discuss. C is a fairly primitive languages, so physicists who go the C++ route tend to look into object oriented coding. Object oriented coding can be useful, especially with massive software projects, but it takes significantly more time to learn.