Has Fortran a future?
Michael Metcalf · ACM SIGPLAN Fortran Forum · 1984
For over 25 years Fortran has dominated all other programming languages in the field of scientific and engineering computation. Although much denigrated by computer-science purists, it has consistently shown itself to be attractive to scientific users because its basic simplicity and power of expression appeal to non-specialists. Can this situation continue? Will the introduction of Fortran 77 lead to an upsurge in the use of the language, providing it with momentum sufficient to carry it through to the end of the decade? Shall we witness a conflict between Fortran 8X and Ada?This paper takes stock of the present status of Fortran and describes its likely development, before going on to speculate on possible trends until the turn of the century.