How old is the average Fortran programmer?
Bart Vandewoestyne
Now that it's weekend and we don't need to program anymore (do
we? ;-) i thought it was time to ask a fun question... something
that I've been wondering about for quite some time now...
We all know that FORTRAN/Fortran is an 'old' language and i have
the impression that in some areas -despite the new F2003 standard-
Fortran programmers are becoming rare, almost an extinct species...
I have the impression that not much 'younger ones' really get to
learn and appreciate the language.
So just to check that... here's my question:
"How old are you, as a Fortran programmer?"
Feel free to respond, I'll collect the ages and report on the
average afterwards :-)
As for myself, I am 28 but will be 29 this month :-)
Best wishes,
Bart
--
"Share what you know. Learn what you don't."
Richard Hoffpauir
Anton Haumer
I'm almost 50 years old,
using Fortran for more than half of my life ;-)
Fortran is the choice for number crunching,
also a lot of old but good numerical calculations
is written in Fortran.
Toni (Austria)
Sebastian Hanigk
> "How old are you, as a Fortran programmer?"
26, began learning Fortran five or six years ago.
Regards,
Sebastian
J. F. Cornwall
Me, 46. Been using it since the USAF put me in the comm/computers field
in '84...
Still using Forrtan 77 too :-(
Jim C
Rich Townsend
Me, 33. Learned F77 during a summer project when I was an undergraduate (1992).
Subsequently learned F90/95 during my PhD (1994-1997).
Jon Harrop
> As for myself, I am 28 but will be 29 this month :-)
I'm 30 this month. I had to code an undergraduate project in Fortran 95
about a decade ago. Never used it since. Now I use OCaml and F# for
scientific computing.
--
Dr Jon D Harrop, Flying Frog Consultancy
OCaml for Scientists
http://www.ffconsultancy.com/products/ocaml_for_scientists/index.html?usenet
highegg
23, learned Fortran 2 years ago.
Dick Hendrickson
>
> "How old are you, as a Fortran programmer?"
>
I'll be 65 this July, I started using FORTRAN in 1963.
Dick Hendrickson
Richard Maine
> "How old are you, as a Fortran programmer?"
I'm 55. I started using Fortran in 1968, when I was 16 and a senior in
high school.
--
Richard Maine | Good judgement comes from experience;
email: last name at domain . net | experience comes from bad judgement.
domain: summertriangle | -- Mark Twain
rusi_pathan
F90/95 :)
Gary Scott
sort of with a version of xedit as the text editor). I mostly use it to
create GUI calculation and data analysis and presentation tools with GINO.
--
Gary Scott
mailto:garylscott@sbcglobal dot net
Fortran Library: http://www.fortranlib.com
Support the Original G95 Project: http://www.g95.org
-OR-
Support the GNU GFortran Project: http://gcc.gnu.org/fortran/index.html
If you want to do the impossible, don't hire an expert because he knows
it can't be done.
-- Henry Ford
Fred Webb
62, started using Fortran in 1963.
--
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Frederick N. Webb fnw...@pobox.com
179 Harvard Road Phone: (978) 486-8657
Littleton, MA 01460 FAX: (508) 652-7787
Ian Gay
news:XU9Gh.37362$Hg4.2...@phobos.telenet-ops.be:
> "How old are you, as a Fortran programmer?"
>
> Feel free to respond, I'll collect the ages and report on the
> average afterwards :-)
>
67 (close to the Abragam limit!). Started Fortran in '63 or '64.
Ian
--
*********** To reply by e-mail, make w single in address **************
Steven G. Kargl
Bart Vandewoestyne <MyFirstName...@telenet.be> writes:
> Hello guys,
>
> Now that it's weekend and we don't need to program anymore (do
> we? ;-) i thought it was time to ask a fun question... something
> that I've been wondering about for quite some time now...
44. Started using Fortran (well watfiv and Fortran IV) in 1983.
PS: I have to write a report on the weekend about my Fortran
generated results. :-)
hob...@bnl.gov
> learn and appreciate the language.
>
> So just to check that... here's my question:
> "How old are you, as a Fortran programmer?"
I'm 49, and have been using it since I learned fortran 4 in college in
1977. In the 80s we had DEC fortran with all it's nice extensions and
then on to the 90/95 after that. It's still the language I use most,
although in my field almost everything is moving/ has moved to the
ubiquitous C++. I keep telling myself I have to as well, and I like
what it has to offer, just hate the ugly syntax it inherited from C.
Carlie J. Coats
> Hello guys,
> "How old are you, as a Fortran programmer?"
54. Started programming in Fortran at 16, in Freshman Physics.
-- Carlie J. Coats, Jr. Ph.D.
Chief Software Architect
Baron Advanced Meteorological Systems, LLC.
Bart Vandewoestyne
>
> "How old are you, as a Fortran programmer?"
Results so far:
18 people who currently still program Fortran have told me their age.
The average age of these people is 44.17 years.
Minimum age so far is 23, maximum age so far is 67.
OK... it's only a small 'sample space' so far... but I think what
we can learn from this is that Fortran isn't realy known among
the 'youngsters'... probably because they all learn about other
languages and never even get to see one line of Fortran code in
their whole university-carreer... :(
Anyway... have a nice Saturday-evening after all!
Bart (hoping to do some paragliding tomorrow morning at sunset... just to
prove that there are other things in life next to Fortran ;-)
Richard Maine
> 18 people who currently still program Fortran have told me their age.
> The average age of these people is 44.17 years.
> Minimum age so far is 23, maximum age so far is 67.
>
> OK... it's only a small 'sample space' so far... but I think what
> we can learn from this is that Fortran isn't realy known among
> the 'youngsters'.
You mean that 23 doesn't count as a youngster? :-)
My conclusion was pretty much the opposite. I saw a pretty wide age
range. I'd also claim that there is at least some validity to that
observation, albeit, as you say, the sample size is small. At least my
conclusion was based on the responses rather than on the non-responses.
However, even with a large sample size, I don't see how you would be
able to meaningfully draw any conclusion at all based on sets of people
who didn't respond. That's what you have tried to do. All you can do is
draw conclusions about people who did respond. I'm tempted to mention
"the silent majority", but perhaps you might not recognize that
particular phrase from US politics.
"Nobody younger than 23 responded to my query" does not translate into
anything particularly close to "Fortran isn't really known among people
younger than 23." It is really, really hard to draw that kind of
negative conclusion from a self-sampled statistic. It doesn't matter how
large the sample is; that's not the problem - or anyway, that's a
different problem, There are an infinite number of alternative
explanations. For example, based on my personal observation of the
"younger set", a more plausible explanation might be that they don't
tend to use usenet news.
pantarei
>
> We all know that FORTRAN/Fortran is an 'old' language and i have
> the impression that in some areas -despite the new F2003 standard-
> Fortran programmers are becoming rare, almost an extinct species...
Things are rarely what they appear to be... there's plenty Da Vinci code
chasers left out there for them to be on the endangered species list -
did you know that http://www.netlib.org had an all time record number
[~60 million] of hits last year?
Will be big S I X O this year; have used Fortran since 1969.
Lane Straatman
"Bart Vandewoestyne" <MyFirstName...@telenet.be> wrote in message
news:XU9Gh.37362
> "How old are you, as a Fortran programmer?"
>
> Feel free to respond, I'll collect the ages and report on the
Gary Scott
Lane Straatman
"Gary Scott" <garyl...@sbcglobal.net> wrote in message
news:E3pGh.6381$BE2....@newssvr27.news.prodigy.net...
> Lane Straatman wrote:
>> "Bart Vandewoestyne" <MyFirstName...@telenet.be> wrote in message
>> news:XU9Gh.37362
>>
>>>"How old are you, as a Fortran programmer?"
>>>
>>>Feel free to respond, I'll collect the ages and report on the
>>
>> I'm 41 this week and got an A in Fortran at BYU in 1987. LS
to make us feel spry. LS
Gib Bogle
glen herrmannsfeldt
(snip)
> Fortran is how we'll stay in our Forties. I think Glen is going to come in
> to make us feel spry. LS
OK, I am 48 and started writing Fortran programs when I was 14.
-- glen
baf
> On 2007-03-03, Bart Vandewoestyne <MyFirstName...@telenet.be> wrote:
>> "How old are you, as a Fortran programmer?"
>
> Results so far:
>
> 18 people who currently still program Fortran have told me their age.
> The average age of these people is 44.17 years.
> Minimum age so far is 23, maximum age so far is 67.
>
teach Fortran to 30 kids each semester who are generally between the age
of 20 and 25. However, I can't get them to pay any attention to clf
since they are too busy coding their next lab exercise in Fortran!
As for me, I learned Fortran in 1972 at the age of 19 on an old IBM 360.
34 years and many languages later, I still find Fortran the best
language for numerical analysis and simulation models.
Dave Weatherall
<MyFirstName...@telenet.be> wrote:
> Hello guys,
>
> "How old are you, as a Fortran programmer?"
54, learned Fortran in Uni in 73/74. didn't use it in earnest until
1979 when I started using DEC Fortran-IV-Plus on pdp11. Now use
VAX/DEC/CPQ/HP-Fortran-77.
--
Cheers - Dave.
Terence
about 5 or more hours/day.
I notice I criticise my older work and re-write it more elegantly and
completely.
I'm the mentioned hacker of the book, who played music on the IBM 1401
print chain.
First computer use was Mercury Star 1958; paper tape in/out CRT (not
screen), had to take boxes of double triodes to replace valves each 20-
minute run. Joind IBM; first Fortran was really non-published Fortan
III (4/1/61) so perhaps early Fortran IV.
Terence Wright
Richard Steiner
Bart Vandewoestyne <MyFirstName...@telenet.be>
spake unto us, saying:
>"How old are you, as a Fortran programmer?"
I'm 44. First started in high school in 1978 or so with MUMNF (the
MECC Timesharing System's MULTI variant of Minnesota Fortran), wrote
lots of F77 code (@FTN) in college on a Sperry 1100/82 and 1100/91, and
have been writing code in various FORTRAN dialects (mainly F66/@FOR and
F77/@FTN) in areas related to the airline industry on Unisys 1100/2200
and Clearpath mainframe boxes since August 1988.
I'm actually bouncing back and forth between a C++/Solaris/Tux/MQ app
and a Unisys F77/HVTIP app right now, which makes for some interesting
mental context shifting. Unisys mainframes are not UNIX boxes, and the
text editors I use (NEdit and @UEDIT) have very little in common. :-)
>As for myself, I am 28 but will be 29 this month :-)
I wish. :-)
--
-Rich Steiner >>>---> http://www.visi.com/~rsteiner >>>---> Mableton, GA USA
Mainframe/Unix bit twiddler by day, OS/2+Linux+DOS hobbyist by night.
WARNING: I've seen FIELDATA FORTRAN V and I know how to use it!
The Theorem Theorem: If If, Then Then.
Brooks Moses
> So just to check that... here's my question:
>
I'm 31, by most measures. I'm not sure what age I am "as a Fortran
programmer", though. :)
- Brooks, has been programming in Fortran for 13 years, with a
significant break in the middle. I originally learned it from a book,
with no computer, in an RV in Alaska.
--
The "bmoses-nospam" address is valid; no unmunging needed.
Brooks Moses
> OK... it's only a small 'sample space' so far... but I think what
> we can learn from this is that Fortran isn't realy known among
> the 'youngsters'... probably because they all learn about other
> languages and never even get to see one line of Fortran code in
> their whole university-carreer... :(
Or maybe they just don't read Usenet. It's becoming almost unknown
among undergrads these days, most of whom who were probably still in
elementary school when web forums got started.
- Brooks
Joost
31, about 10 years of Fortran.
Joost
Harold Stevens
[Snip...]
> "How old are you, as a Fortran programmer?"
57--started with Watfor on IBM 360 in '68 or so as a sophomore in college.
--
Regards, Weird (Harold Stevens) * IMPORTANT EMAIL INFO FOLLOWS *
Pardon any bogus email addresses (wookie) in place for spambots.
Really, it's (wyrd) at airmail, dotted with net. DO NOT SPAM IT.
Kids jumping ship? Looking to hire an old-school type? Email me.
PJH
Age 46. First used Fortran in 1979 at university then no programmming until
1995 when I relearnt Fortran and Delphi. Used Fortran on and off since then.
I expect to be retired long before a fully compliant F2008 compiler is
available - during which time there will have been at least 10 major
revisions to Delphi....
Paul Holden
Beliavsky
Of course an ISO standard for a programming language will evolve more
slowly than a programming language controlled by a single company.
Some people PREFER the stability of the former. Visual Basic, a
Microsoft language that is one of the popular programming languages in
history, has evolved so fast that the current version (VB.NET) is
compatible with classic Visual Basic, causing much consternation in
the VB community.
e p chandler
<MyFirstName.MyLastN...@telenet.be> wrote:
> Hello guys,
>
> Now that it's weekend and we don't need to program anymore (do
> we? ;-) i thought it was time to ask a fun question... something
> that I've been wondering about for quite some time now...
>
> the impression that in some areas -despite the new F2003 standard-
> Fortran programmers are becoming rare, almost an extinct species...
>
> learn and appreciate the language.
>
>
>
>
> As for myself, I am 28 but will be 29 this month :-)
>
> Bart
>
> --
> "Share what you know. Learn what you don't."
Age 54. Learned FORTRAN in late '62 or early '63 from a local
professor who was doing an experiment in teaching "new math". Since
then sporadic work on IBM 360 & 370, PDP-10, Univac 1108 and various
micro-computers.
-- Elliot
FX
> Minimum age so far is 23
I'm 24, I wrote my first Fortran code 5 years ago and soon became quite
addicted :)
As for the age statistics, I'd also say that in my area of research
(physical chemistry) Fortran is well established and it's learnt by a lot
of undergrads and grad students (like me), but like others, I feel Usenet
is not so much used among them.
--
FX
Charles Russell
> "How old are you, as a Fortran programmer?"
There used to be a distinction between "programmer" and "user." I've
been using fortran since 1963, but I've (almost) never written a program
for someone else to use, and have never been paid a cent for a program.
Last year I turned 70 and published my last paper that depended on
fortran calculations. I doubt that I am representative of the
participants in this newsgroup, who mostly seem to be closer to
"programmer" than to "user."
The market for users who just want a math tool was perhaps never very
large, but at one time it was a large fraction of computer users, and
they had a big say in the evolution of fortran up through f77.
Pierre Asselin
But today I prefer C :-O
--
pa at panix dot com
Gary Scott
> I'm fifty. First used Fortran about 35 years ago, IIRC.
> But today I prefer C :-O
I wonder how someone comes to that mind set?? I know several languages,
not well but enough to be productive. I prefer languages that lend
themselves to a more self-documenting style. C being somewhat cryptic,
seems to me to be the antithesis of self-documenting (and thus clarity).
Pierre Asselin
> Pierre Asselin wrote:
> > I'm fifty. First used Fortran about 35 years ago, IIRC.
> > But today I prefer C :-O
> I wonder how someone comes to that mind set?? I know several languages,
> not well but enough to be productive. I prefer languages that lend
> themselves to a more self-documenting style. C being somewhat cryptic,
> seems to me to be the antithesis of self-documenting (and thus clarity).
There is a cryptic substratum to C syntax that can never go away :-)
but once you get used to it, the language is *very* amenable to a
self-documenting style. In particular, the header files are the
perfect place to document the programming interfaces. C's terseness
becomes an asset, as it allows the essential information to be
concentrated closer to the top of the header. I try to use a
similar style in my F90+ modules but somehow it doesn't come as easily.
As to why I switched: basically because F77 was no longer enough,
C was available, it was the portable language, it always came with
a full API to the underlying OSes, F90 came too late and it didn't
do enough. My only reasons to code the occasional routine in
Fortran were complex numbers and aggressive optimization; C now
has complex numbers and restricted pointers so those reasons are
going away too.
These days, I write C, C++ and Fortran but my first choice would
be C, with Fortran bindings to support users whom I can't ask to
learn another language. Sadly, the most portable C interop today
is still the F77 subset, augmented by hacks on the C side.
OTOH, c.l.fortran rocks and c.l.c sucks !
Greg Lindahl
fans) and first learned Fortran when I was 16. For the first time.
-- greg
John Harper
>I've turned 39 for the 3rd time (that's 41 for you non-Jack Benny
>fans) and first learned Fortran when I was 16. For the first time.
In my case, 30th time (68), 25.
-- John Harper, School of Mathematics, Statistics and Computer Science,
Victoria University, PO Box 600, Wellington 6140, New Zealand
e-mail john....@vuw.ac.nz phone (+64)(4)463 5341 fax (+64)(4)463 5045
Bob Stryk
> Hello guys,
>
> Now that it's weekend and we don't need to program anymore (do
> we? ;-) i thought it was time to ask a fun question... something
> that I've been wondering about for quite some time now...
>
> We all know that FORTRAN/Fortran is an 'old' language and i have
> the impression that in some areas -despite the new F2003 standard-
> Fortran programmers are becoming rare, almost an extinct species...
>
> I have the impression that not much 'younger ones' really get to
> learn and appreciate the language.
>
> So just to check that... here's my question:
>
> "How old are you, as a Fortran programmer?"
>
> Feel free to respond, I'll collect the ages and report on the
> average afterwards :-)
>
> As for myself, I am 28 but will be 29 this month :-)
>
> Best wishes,
> Bart
>
This week I will celebrate my 70th birthday. I learned Fortran for the
Control Data 1604 in 1960 in order to replace 3 hours on a Marchant desk
calculator to achieve a least sqares fit with a 1 minute run after 10
minutes punching the data cards. Since then I have used Fortran
continuously and upgraded as compilers became available. I am now using
a Fortran 98 compiler to help maintain a 150,000 line mechanical
simulation code. The two young engineers they hired to replace me have
mostly taken over so I am mostly a part-time history advisor now.
How far does that raise the average?
Bob Stryk
Lane Straatman
"Bob Stryk" <ras...@tcq.nospam.net> wrote in message
news:esft9...@enews5.newsguy.com...
> Bart Vandewoestyne wrote:
>> So just to check that... here's my question:
>>
>> "How old are you, as a Fortran programmer?"
>>
>> Feel free to respond, I'll collect the ages and report on the
> This week I will celebrate my 70th birthday. I learned Fortran for the
> Control Data 1604 in 1960 in order to replace 3 hours on a Marchant desk
> calculator to achieve a least sqares fit with a 1 minute run after 10
> minutes punching the data cards. Since then I have used Fortran
> continuously and upgraded as compilers became available. I am now using a
> Fortran 98 compiler to help maintain a 150,000 line mechanical simulation
> code. The two young engineers they hired to replace me have mostly taken
> over so I am mostly a part-time history advisor now.
>
> How far does that raise the average?
I was thinking here at 41 I might be the mode or median, but with you and
Terence chiming in, I think we're looking at the late forties for an
average. LS
Lynn
I am 46. I have been programming in F66 / F77 since 1975.
I also program in C, C++, HTML, VBA, etc...
Lynn
Steven G. Kargl
But, does it look like Fortran? Some of my earliest C code
looks eeriely close to Fortran. :)
Gib Bogle
Not?
highegg
Yeah, I keep this one in mind as a warning that this actually CAN
happen again to private languages such as C#, if someone decides to
teach the world THE good programming, instead of listening to the user
base.
David Flower
<MyFirstName.MyLastN...@telenet.be> wrote:
> Hello guys,
>
> Now that it's weekend and we don't need to program anymore (do
> we? ;-) i thought it was time to ask a fun question... something
> that I've been wondering about for quite some time now...
>
> We all know that FORTRAN/Fortran is an 'old' language and i have
> the impression that in some areas -despite the new F2003 standard-
> Fortran programmers are becoming rare, almost an extinct species...
>
> I have the impression that not much 'younger ones' really get to
> learn and appreciate the language.
>
>
>
>
> As for myself, I am 28 but will be 29 this month :-)
>
> Best wishes,
> Bart
>
> "Share what you know. Learn what you don't."
62; learned in 1966, and have been using it essentially continously
ever since!
Dave Flower
SimonG
I'm 49. Started with Ratfor in 1977 (QMC London thought that we would
learn structured programming better starting with Ratfor - fortran
proper was a 3rd year course!)
Regards,
Simon Geard
Ian Bush
>
> "How old are you, as a Fortran programmer?"
>
> Feel free to respond, I'll collect the ages and report on the
> average afterwards :-)
>
39. Definitely 39. Definitely not 40. Quite,
Ian
Arjen Markus
was back then) in 1982 (+/- 1 year (*)), learned FORTRAN 77 a couple
of years later. But I have been using Fortran 90/95 since, say,
1998 and am rather fond of its facilities.
Regards,
Arjen
(*) I am no good with years and have to reconstruct them
from other information, such as the year I went to
university - a number I had to write down a lot (whenever
there was an examination for instance).
Klaus Wacker
[...]
>
> "How old are you, as a Fortran programmer?"
>
60. I learned Fortran around 1970. Hated it at first, I had learned
Algol a year before.
--
Klaus Wacker klaus....@udo.edu
Experimentelle Physik V http://www.physik.uni-dortmund.de/~wacker
Universitaet Dortmund Tel.: +49 231 755 3587
D-44221 Dortmund Fax: +49 231 755 4547
Les
I'm 58 (and a half) and have been programming in Fortran for 30 years (with
more and more C and C++ over the last few years). Started with Algol as an
undergrad, did Cobol and Assembler when I started a proper job. The move to
Fortran was like being set free!
Les
alexei....@gmail.com
>
> "How old are you, as a Fortran programmer?"
>
8 years old as a Fortran programmer. Age 31.
Got through the Usenet preconditioner because of
having yet another legal/not-legal question to the
gurus.
Dan Nagle
highegg wrote:
<snip>
> I keep this one in mind as a warning that this actually CAN
> happen again to private languages such as C#, if someone decides to
> teach the world THE good programming, instead of listening to the user
> base.
C# is actually an International Standard, published by ECMA.
IIRC, you can download the published standard free.
--
Cheers!
Dan Nagle
Purple Sage Computing Solutions, Inc.
Zuczek
>
> "How old are you, as a Fortran programmer?"
>
I'm 30. about 7 year experience in Fortran.
Ian Bush
Oh, and 19 years experience,
Ian
Norman S. Clerman
first FORTRAN program in FORTRAN II in about 1966.
El viejo programador (slowly fading away)
Bart Vandewoestyne wrote:
> Hello guys,
>
> Now that it's weekend and we don't need to program anymore (do
> we? ;-) i thought it was time to ask a fun question... something
> that I've been wondering about for quite some time now...
>
> We all know that FORTRAN/Fortran is an 'old' language and i have
> the impression that in some areas -despite the new F2003 standard-
> Fortran programmers are becoming rare, almost an extinct species...
>
> I have the impression that not much 'younger ones' really get to
> learn and appreciate the language.
>
> So just to check that... here's my question:
>
> "How old are you, as a Fortran programmer?"
>
> Feel free to respond, I'll collect the ages and report on the
> average afterwards :-)
>
Beliavsky
<snip>
> > Of course an ISO standard for a programming language will evolve more
> > slowly than a programming language controlled by a single company.
> > Some people PREFER the stability of the former. Visual Basic, a
> > Microsoft language that is one of the popular programming languages in
> > history, has evolved so fast that the current version (VB.NET) is
> > compatible with classic Visual Basic, causing much consternation in
> > the VB community.
>
> Not?
Yes, I mean to write that VB.NET is NOT compatible with Visual Basic 6
and earlier.
While I'm at it -- I am 36 and started programming in Fortran (77)
about 15 years ago on Unix workstations from Sun, IBM, and HP during
my PhD work in electronic structure physics. Only near the end of my
graduate work in 1997 did our group have access to a Fortran 90
compiler -- it was purchased on a single workstation, because of cost,
and F90 was regarded as a bit "exotic". Due to the efforts of compiler
writers, both volunteer and professional, and of hardware vendors,
Fortran 95 on (what are effectively) workstations is now quite
accessible -- thanks! Now I work for a quantitative hedge fund.
Bart, I think the person who started the survey is responsible for
eventually summarizing the results :).
James Parsly
was 16.
"Norman S. Clerman" <norm....@fuse.net> wrote in message
news:f99c$45ec26cf$d8c4f0c6$11...@FUSE.NET...
AeroSpace Ed
> Hello guys,
> "How old are you, as a Fortran programmer?"
> Best wishes,
> Bart
>
I'm 43. Started programming in 1973. Fortran since 1981 (26 yrs).
I DREAM IN FORTRAN and it's a brilliant, beautiful landscape....
Ed
Jan Vorbrüggen
Turning 46 in a few months. After starting with BASIC on a Honeywell and a
Wang at school, during my student years worked as a sysadmin and supported
various FORTRAN programs, mostly from/for CERN, including re-writing one
package from scratch into proper F77. Then didn't use it for 15 years or so
until I wrote a face recognition program in F90 for SPEC CPU2000. Actually
managed to use it at work about a year ago for a little test generator, thanks
to DEC's sponsorship of a Fortran compiler for that SPEC project.
Jan
w5...@netscape.net
> This average Fortran programmer is 58.
I am 73 and startd programming in FORTRAN (rather than fortran) in
1961 via punched paper tape inouyt to an IBM machine whose id I no
longer recall. Maybe 1401? Not 701 or 704.
Les
"Norman S. Clerman" <norm....@fuse.net> wrote in message
news:f99c$45ec26cf$d8c4f0c6$11...@FUSE.NET...
> FORTRAN program in FORTRAN II in about 1966.
>
> El viejo programador (slowly fading away)
>
Fortran programmers don't fade away they merely disassemble. :-)
Les
Charles Russell
I learned Fortran around 1970. Hated it at first, I had learned
> Algol a year before.
>
more sensible than English. But one must be practical.
Bart Vandewoestyne
>
> "How old are you, as a Fortran programmer?"
Update of the results as of 5/03/2007:
50 people have told me their age
Average age is 48
Minimum age is 23
Maximum age is 73
43 people told me how many years of Fortran experience they have
Average number of years is 27
Some comments from my side:
* I feel suuuuuuuuuuuuuuch a newcomer with my 3 years of
experience and being just 29 years old ;-)
* Maybe it is an advantage for me that I have started with
Fortran 95 and not an older version... i don't need to adapt
and i immediately write code that uses all the elegant features
of the language! And I'm looking forward to write and compile
full F2003-compliant code!
* *Respect* to w5...@netscape.net for still programming Fortran
at the age of 73!
* Sorry to all those people whom I might have made feel old...
this was clearly not my intention :-) But as we all know,
being and feeling young isn't in the body, it's in the mind!
Within that philosophy, i'm 16 sometimes (according to my
girlfriend ;-)
kris
<MyFirstName.MyLastN...@telenet.be> wrote:
> Hello guys,
>
> Now that it's weekend and we don't need to program anymore (do
> we? ;-) i thought it was time to ask a fun question... something
> that I've been wondering about for quite some time now...
>
> We all know that FORTRAN/Fortran is an 'old' language and i have
> the impression that in some areas -despite the new F2003 standard-
> Fortran programmers are becoming rare, almost an extinct species...
>
> I have the impression that not much 'younger ones' really get to
> learn and appreciate the language.
>
> So just to check that... here's my question:
>
>
> average afterwards :-)
>
>
> Best wishes,
> Bart
>
> --
> "Share what you know. Learn what you don't."
I am 31 and have been programming off/on since learning it in my
undegraduage in 1994, but only seriously programming in f95 for the
last 3 years (working on my PhD research).
I am one of about 5-6 people in my graduate department of >60 who
program in Fortran (others use Matlab, C++, or nothing at all).
Kris
me...@skyway.usask.ca
Chris
Richard Maine
> On 2007-03-03, Bart Vandewoestyne <MyFirstName...@telenet.be> wrote:
> >
> > "How old are you, as a Fortran programmer?"
>
> Update of the results as of 5/03/2007:
...
> * Sorry to all those people whom I might have made feel old...
> this was clearly not my intention :-)
One thing I was intrigued by was some of the individual answers, more
than the statistics. I sometimes get an impression of people's age based
on their postings. Sometimes that impression turns out to be way off -
in either direction. There are people who I assume must be well senior
to me based on their apparent experience base, but who turn out not to
be. And there are those whose expository style leads me to think things
like "brash inexperienced undergraduate (if not junior high)", but turn
out to be older than me.
I'll avoid mentioning names, because it could cause needless bad
feelings. I'm not meaning to single out individuals - just noticing the
generality that my impressions haven't always been very accurate.
--
Richard Maine | Good judgement comes from experience;
email: last name at domain . net | experience comes from bad judgement.
domain: summertriangle | -- Mark Twain
Kevin G. Rhoads
on CDC-6400 & IBM 360 (and assembler only on PDP-8) (on my own, in
high school).
Wrote a guide to hacking OS/360 freshman year in college (1969/70) --
still have the card deck -- anybody got a lister?
Got certified as a Registered Business Programmer in 1972 (and never
wrote another line of Cobol).
Mostly doing F77 dialect of Fortran for number crunching and 8051
assembly for embedded systems stuff at present.
If I NEVER have to program another 4 bit micro again, I'll be happy.
cup
Fortran II for work but for fun I've used IV (66), V (some strange
dialect), 77, 90 and 95. It has come a long way since Fortran II with
3 way jumps on all if statements.
I use Fortran and BASIC as an escape from the C family of languages.
Nice to play with something simple after a whole day buried in OO C++
stuff with its templates, multiple inheritence, virtual functions,
morphing and macros.
Still have a tatty 1978 copy of "Real Programmers don't eat
quiche" (they do everything in Fortran)
t...@texasairnet.com
Colin Watters
Started FORTRAN IV in University on a Biochemistry BSc as a sideline in
1972. Continued attending lectures and tutorials for the remaining year
although the course ended after one term.
After a couple of years flying Jet Trainers in Her Majesty's Air force I
returned to college to get a biochemistry PhD. Got side-tracked into
computing, writing programs to do analysis of scintillation counter results
held on paper tape. After 3 years there were no 'real' results worth writing
a thesis for, but I walked into a job with a computer bureau by showing the
interviewers my code and the graphs it produced. That was 1980, and my
sideline is still keeping me well paid and extremely well amused.
--
Qolin
Email: my qname at domain
Domain: qomputing dot demon dot co dot uk
"Bart Vandewoestyne" <MyFirstName...@telenet.be> wrote in message
news:XU9Gh.37362$Hg4.2...@phobos.telenet-ops.be...
> Hello guys,
>
> Now that it's weekend and we don't need to program anymore (do
> we? ;-) i thought it was time to ask a fun question... something
> that I've been wondering about for quite some time now...
>
> We all know that FORTRAN/Fortran is an 'old' language and i have
> the impression that in some areas -despite the new F2003 standard-
> Fortran programmers are becoming rare, almost an extinct species...
>
> I have the impression that not much 'younger ones' really get to
> learn and appreciate the language.
>
> So just to check that... here's my question:
>
> "How old are you, as a Fortran programmer?"
>
Greg Lindahl
cup <cup...@btinternet.com> wrote:
>Still have a tatty 1978 copy of "Real Programmers don't eat
>quiche" (they do everything in Fortran)
http://www.pbm.com/~lindahl/real.programmers.html
Does it really date earlier than 1983?
-- greg
gary.l...@lmco.com
<MyFirstName.MyLastN...@telenet.be> wrote:
> On 2007-03-03, Bart Vandewoestyne <MyFirstName.MyLastN...@telenet.be> wrote:
>
>
>
> > "How old are you, as a Fortran programmer?"
>
> Update of the results as of 5/03/2007:
>
> 50 people have told me their age
> Average age is 48
> Minimum age is 23
> Maximum age is 73
>
> 43 people told me how many years of Fortran experience they have
> Average number of years is 27
>
> Some comments from my side:
>
> * I feel suuuuuuuuuuuuuuch a newcomer with my 3 years of
> experience and being just 29 years old ;-)
>
> * Maybe it is an advantage for me that I have started with
> Fortran 95 and not an older version... i don't need to adapt
> and i immediately write code that uses all the elegant features
> of the language! And I'm looking forward to write and compile
> full F2003-compliant code!
>
> at the age of 73!
>
> * Sorry to all those people whom I might have made feel old...
> this was clearly not my intention :-) But as we all know,
> being and feeling young isn't in the body, it's in the mind!
Tell that to my aching joints (I run/workout several hours each day).
Believe me, it hurts a lot more than it did when I was 27.
Paul van Delst
> On Mar 5, 1:47 pm, Bart Vandewoestyne
> <MyFirstName.MyLastN...@telenet.be> wrote:
>>
>> * Sorry to all those people whom I might have made feel old...
>> this was clearly not my intention :-) But as we all know,
>> being and feeling young isn't in the body, it's in the mind!
>
> Tell that to my aching joints (I run/workout several hours each day).
> Believe me, it hurts a lot more than it did when I was 27.
Each day?!?! Crikey. I would expect it to hurt a lot even at 27. :o)
cheers,
paulv
--
Paul van Delst Ride lots.
CIMSS @ NOAA/NCEP/EMC Eddy Merckx
Lane Straatman
<gary.l...@lmco.com> wrote in message
news:1173138600.7...@8g2000cwh.googlegroups.com...
> On Mar 5, 1:47 pm, Bart Vandewoestyne
>> at the age of 73!
probably checks usenet weekly. More surprising, like Richard said, are the
people who you thought had to be 73 in order to have so much experience.
>> * Sorry to all those people whom I might have made feel old...
>> this was clearly not my intention :-) But as we all know,
>> being and feeling young isn't in the body, it's in the mind!
>
> Tell that to my aching joints (I run/workout several hours each day).
> Believe me, it hurts a lot more than it did when I was 27.
I am religious regarding ergonomics and avoiding the sedentary lifestyle
that a goodly percentage of programmers have. Sitting can be one of the
hardest things on your body. I finally purchased a monitor that is
appropriate to the curvature of the eyeball of a middle-aged dude. LS
Paul van Delst
16? You old codger. My wife and I still laugh at fart jokes so I guess that makes me about
9 years old with 20 years of "experience" writing Fortran code. :oD (I wonder if there's
a causal link there somewhere.....)
Norman S. Clerman
Terence
The machine was very probably an IBM 1620. I don't remember the any
IBM digital computer that used paper tape before that one. I installed
two for IBM in the UK when I worked for them (Lloyds' Register of
Shipping and a Tech college now University).
But the 704 was probably where "W" learned the FORTRAN. If it used
sense lights and sense switches it was Fortran I or more likely II.
III was never admitted to. I knew it as 4/1/61. Then came Fortran IV.
I wrote the decompiler and auto-diagrammer for the 1401 and a tape-
based O/S. Shell did all its accounting on one in integer arithmetic.
Steven G. Kargl
Jeff Ryman <see_a...@signature.com> writes:
> On Mon, 5 Mar 2007 05:23:53 +0000 (UTC),
> ka...@troutmask.apl.washington.edu (Steven G. Kargl) wrote:
>
> [snip]
>>But, does it look like Fortran? Some of my earliest C code
>>looks eeriely close to Fortran. :)
>
> I have seen the quote that a good Fortran programmer can write Fortran
> code in any language!
My version of fortune did not turn up that quote, and yes I've
seen the quote you mentions. I did run across these pearls
A little retrospection shows that although many fine, useful software
systems have been designed by committees and built as part of multipart
projects, those software systems that have excited passionate fans are
those that are the products of one or a few designing minds, great
designers. Consider Unix, APL, Pascal, Modula, the Smalltalk interface,
even Fortran; and contrast them with Cobol, PL/I, Algol, MVS/370, and MS-DOS.
-- Fred Brooks
FORTRAN is not a flower but a weed -- it is hardy,
occasionally blooms, and grows in every computer.
-- A. J. Perlis
FORTRAN is the language of Powerful Computers.
-- Steven Feiner
FORTRAN, "the infantile disorder", by now nearly 20 years old, is hopelessly
inadequate for whatever computer application you have in mind today: it is
too clumsy, too risky, and too expensive to use.
-- Edsger W. Dijkstra, SIGPLAN Notices, Volume 17, Number 5
You can measure a programmer's perspective by noting his attitude on
the continuing viability of FORTRAN.
-- Alan Perlis
Bart Vandewoestyne
>
> 16? You old codger. My wife and I still laugh at fart jokes [...]
Paul, I have the impression that next to Fortran, there are other
things we have in common... ;-)
But this is slightly going off-topic here :-)
Regards,
Gib Bogle
> to hacking do?
>
> How do you hack into a mainframe?
I think you are confusing hacking with cracking. Hacking is just coding.
Jugoslav Dujic
| Hello guys,
| learn and appreciate the language.
|
| So just to check that... here's my question:
|
|
| average afterwards :-)
I'm 34, actively using Fortran since 1997. I think I was the
youngest regular on clf back in late 2000s, but I'm glad it's
not the case enymore...
--
Jugoslav
___________
www.xeffort.com
Please reply to the newsgroup.
You can find my real e-mail on my home page above.
Jan Vorbrüggen
> than the statistics. I sometimes get an impression of people's age based
> on their postings. Sometimes that impression turns out to be way off -
> in either direction.
My thoughts entirely!
Jan
Jan Vorbrüggen
Then you are likely overdoing it. Seriously.
Jan
Greg Lindahl
Jeff Ryman <see_a...@signature.com> wrote:
>I have seen the quote that a good Fortran programmer can write Fortran
>code in any language!
http://www.pbm.com/~lindahl/real.programmers.html
"Besides, the determined Real Programmer can write Fortran programs in
any language."
-- greg
Harold Stevens
[Snip...]
> "Besides, the determined Real Programmer can write Fortran programs in
> any language."
...which was precisely my mindset when I started doing RPG-II for a small
business in the mid '70's or so. Much merriment ensued. :)
--
Regards, Weird (Harold Stevens) * IMPORTANT EMAIL INFO FOLLOWS *
Pardon any bogus email addresses (wookie) in place for spambots.
Really, it's (wyrd) at airmail, dotted with net. DO NOT SPAM IT.
Kids jumping ship? Looking to hire an old-school type? Email me.
Bil Kleb
>
> I am religious regarding ergonomics and avoiding the sedentary lifestyle
> that a goodly percentage of programmers have. Sitting can be one of the
> hardest things on your body. I finally purchased a monitor that is
> appropriate to the curvature of the eyeball of a middle-aged dude. LS
Straying far off topic, but you might consider an Ergopod 500,
http://www.officeorganix.com/Eropod500.htm
or, relax with the curvature of a hammock,
http://www.makezine.com/blog/archive/2007/03/hammock_bracket_v02.html
:)
Regards,
--
Bil Kleb
http://funit.rubyforge.org
Dr Ivan D. Reid
wrote in <1hue68d.c9xo0o1ix49q7N%nos...@see.signature>:
> Bart Vandewoestyne <MyFirstName...@telenet.be> wrote:
>> "How old are you, as a Fortran programmer?"
> high school.
I'm a couple of months younger than Richard, I believe, but started
FORTRAN a couple of years later, in a first-year Applied Maths course at
ANU (punched cards on an IBM 360/?? (50?)) in 1970.
--
Ivan Reid, School of Engineering & Design, _____________ CMS Collaboration,
Brunel University. Ivan.Reid@[brunel.ac.uk|cern.ch] Room 40-1-B12, CERN
KotPT -- "for stupidity above and beyond the call of duty".
David Rowell
7074(?). Absolutely hated the rigid format requirements.
Tried again using FORTRAN IV(?) on IBM 360 in 1975/76. Wrote a program
to aid in design of multi-plate roller thrust bearings - be darned if
the it didn't run right out of the box! System admin was ticked when
the fool thing ran for a few minutes vainly searching for data which I
hadn't included - whoever expected the fool thing to run first time??!
Translated a bunch of NASA compressor design/analysis programs to MS
Professional Basic during the 80's and 90's. We didn't have a Fortran
compiler and PBasic is very capable - I still think easier printed
output than Fortran. Since I retired I've been learning g77 (Ubuntu
Linux) extended Fortran while re-coding a bunch of centrifugal
compressor design programs. Really appreciate some of the extended
features and have no incentive to "upgrade".
Maybe 5 years of programming experience with Fortran altogether. Oh,
yes, I'm going on 70 now.
David Rowell - KI4JVU
Bart Vandewoestyne wrote:
...
>
> So just to check that... here's my question:
>
> "How old are you, as a Fortran programmer?"
>
...
>
> Best wishes,
> Bart
>
Charles Russell
> The machine was very probably an IBM 1620. I don't remember the any
> IBM digital computer that used paper tape before that one.
If it used
> sense lights and sense switches it was Fortran I or more likely II.
> III was never admitted to.
IIRC, it was a 1620 that I learned on. It was set up in right in the
central foyer of Harvard's main chemistry building, Mallinckrodt
Laboratories, with access open to any passerby. (Computer security? I
think there was a receptionist nearby during the day.) It had sense
switches, but had a card reader rather than tape. There was a keypunch
machine there, and a couple of compiler decks (a spare deck in case you
dropped one). You punched your program deck and your data deck, then
dropped them into the hopper on top of the compiler deck.
At that time the only alternatives were a slide rule or
electromechanical desk calculator.
Michel Oui
>
> "How old are you, as a Fortran programmer?"
Age 52. Learned Fortran IV in 1973 at "We Are...Penn State!"
Still use Fortran for hydrodynamic and water quality simulation
modeling, but usually code pre- and post-processing software
using Pascal/Delphi. Only use Visual Basic when forced by
client or when debugging code written by others.
Charles Russell
> On Mon, 5 Mar 2007 05:23:53 +0000 (UTC),
> ka...@troutmask.apl.washington.edu (Steven G. Kargl) wrote:
>
> [snip]
>
>>But, does it look like Fortran? Some of my earliest C code
>>looks eeriely close to Fortran. :)
>
>
> code in any language!
For me, a computer has always been a black box defined by the fortran
language. I've written fortran idiom in PL/1, basic, pascal, and C.
However, it took a couple of years of Turbo Pascal programming (the
dual-floppy PC with no hard disk was a lousy fortran platform) to make
me realize what a small subset of fortran I really needed.
Richard Maine
> However, it took a couple of years of Turbo Pascal programming (the
> dual-floppy PC with no hard disk was a lousy fortran platform) to make
> me realize what a small subset of fortran I really needed.
I did quite a lot in Turbo Pascal at home for a while. I must have
bought half a dozen different releases, along with quite a few
toolboxes. I've got about 2 feet of bookshelf space with the various
manuals, and that's because I cleaned it out a bit recently. I actually
still use one of my old Turbo Pascal programs on this iMac (in Windows
running in Parallels). I'm not sure I could still rebuild it, but the
old executable still works. Its the program that has the database of my
science fiction library. I keep looking for a commercial product that
will do better, but I haven't yet found one that has some of the most
important functionality to me.
But my reaction is almost the opposite. Turbo Pascal is one of the
things that helped me realize how much I was missing in Fortran 77 and
how awkward it was to get by without it. Indeed, Turbo Pascal had the
two features that I have regularly mentioned as being what I left
Fortran 77 to get - strcutures and dynamic allocation.
--
Richard Maine | Good judgement comes from experience;
email: last name at domain . net | experience comes from bad judgement.
domain: summertriangle | -- Mark Twain