From: kplot...@nospam.net (Ken Plotkin)
Subject: Re: Fortran Myths & Disinformation Wanted
Date: 1999/02/06
Message-ID: <36bc851e.1465975@news.clark.net>#1/1
X-Deja-AN: 441422714
References: <36B9B8FF.4E34BF22@mixcom.com> <36BA1282.41EA5CB3@earthlink.net>
Organization: Guybrush Threepwood Fan Club
Newsgroups: comp.lang.fortran

On Thu, 04 Feb 1999 16:34:58 -0500, Martin Ambuhl
<mamb...@earthlink.net> wrote:


>You are emphasizing expansion at the expense of truth.  In particular,
>over a history of 35 years of programming I have never heard #1, #3, #4,
>#5, #6, #7, or #9.  #2 and #8 reflect a reality about much legacy
>Fortran code and are probably widely believed.  If someone asserted #10,
>I would be suspicious of his general computing knowlege.

I've been doing Fortran for about the same number of years, and I've
heard most of them.  #10 is the most common, followed by #2.  (I
personally believe in #6, but that's another story. :-) )

A couple of years ago we (the group of a couple of dozen engineers I
work with) tried hiring a "real" programmer.  Some of the candidates,
who were very well qualified, expressed astonishment that anybody was
still using Fortran.  They thought it had died years ago.

>
>You should also know that COBOL suffers much more than Fortran in this
>respect.  I suspect that the Fortran community is replete with people
[snip]

I'll bet it does, and even more unfairly.  But it wasn't always like
that.  In the mid-60s, when I was cutting my teeth on Fortran and
hanging around the keypunch room, discussions would come up as to
whether one could make a living as a programmer.  The consensus was
that you could make a little side money doing Fortran, mostly from
grad students or professors who were inept or arrogant, but the way to
the *real* money was to learn COBOL and work for a bank or a big
company.

Ken Plotkin