[hpcjoe]

I've been a Fortran user for (gawd help me) 35 years or so. I can say that rumors of its demise are greatly exaggerated.

There are many languages, and language fads. Fortran was never sexy, never faddy.

My research codes from 30+ years ago still compile w/o issue to this day, and run, on my linux laptop. Even using the big endian data files (gfortran has a nice switch for that).

I don't really use it actively anymore. But I know many who do. And when I hear others say "X for scientific computing", I've got to chuckle a bit. C++ code I wrote 15 years ago won't compile today. Python ... the language changes within minor versions (ran into this at work last week, with 3.6.8 being sufficiently different than 3.9.x that I had to rewrite a number of functions for 3.9.x).

I've not had to change my Fortran. Or my 25+ year old Perl. They just work. Which is something of a base requirement for scientific code. If you hand someone a code base, and N months/years later, it doesn't work ... that helps no one.

[MaxBarraclough]

> C++ code I wrote 15 years ago won't compile today

Do you recall specifically why?

Also, isn't C pretty 'time proof'? The only time I've seen old C fail to compile was when dealing with a real relic of a codebase. If memory serves it used the pre-standardisation parameter-declaration syntax:

    void my_func(x, y)
    {
        int x;
        long y;
    }

[gnufx]

It's perhaps worth saaying that 30 years ago code in the wild might well not have compiled and run correctly on a different system, and is more likely to today. There tended to be more non-standard features and ignoring of the standard -- specifically storage association and order of evaluation rules, which people who hadn't read the standard would swear weren't in it. Also, there are a few things which have been dropped from the standard, though not necessarily from compilers.

[throwawayboise]

COBOL is another one. COBOL programs written decades ago are still running unchanged on mainframes today. (Not that it was ever used for scientific computing.)

[the_only_law]

I recall reading on HN a while back that a modern z/OS mainframe can run unmodified System/360 binaries.

[gnufx]

Well, there was the shocking news here not long ago that some OS\360(?) backwards compatibility had been dropped. What's the world coming to.

Relevant to Fortran, there's a version of ESSL that I recall on OS\370 now for POWER9 (and doubtless 10). Scientific subroutine libraries are arguably the best example of the re-use beloved of those who haven't seen their OOP code last decades.

[1996]

wine can also run unmodified windows binaries

[the_only_law]

Yes and if those windows binaries were from a platform from over 50 years ago then perhaps your snarky quips would come off as intelligent.

[1996]

Windows 3.1, released on April 6, 1992 - so only 29 years old.

My bad, the 21 years difference must be important (somehow?)