RfL: Fortran

[W3Suser204156]

Hi,

request for language (RfL): Fortran

Note: Will not go into discussion of "rational" or "historical" or "use Python" or "visit (...) it is there" etc. -- this is a legitimate and powerful language with applications in different engineering domains, among others. This is just a "feature request for w3school."

Kind regards

Edited May 28 by W3Suser204156

[Ilan]

Just out of curiosity, I checked the TIOBE index... First, THANK GOD the JavaScript is not in top five.

Secondly, Fortran has been in top 10 since 2002 and actually the CEO of TIOBE talked about this on main index page:

Quote

TIOBE Index for May 2024

May Headline: Fortran in the top 10, what is going on?

I have received a lot of questions why Fortran entered the top 10 again after more than 20 years. The TIOBE index just publishes what has been measured. There are for instance more than 1,000 hits for "Fortran programming" on Amazon, which is the leading company in books. New cool languages such as Kotlin and Rust, barely hit 300 books for the same search query. So, what is going on? First of all, the Fortran language is still evolving since its inception in 1957. Less than half a year ago, the new ISO Fortran 2023 definition was published.

The main reason for Fortran's resurrection is the growing importance of numerical/mathematical computing. Despite lots of competitors in this field, Fortran has its reason for existence. Let's briefly check the competition out. Python: choice number one, but slow, MATLAB: very easy to use for mathematical computation but it comes with expensive licenses, C/C++: mainstream and fast, but they have no native mathematical computation support, R: very similar to Python, but less popular and slow, Julia: the rising new kid on the block, but not mature yet. And in this jungle of languages, Fortran appears to be fast, having native mathematical computation support, mature, and free of charge. Silently, slowly but surely, Fortran gains ground. It is surprising but undeniable. --Paul Jansen CEO TIOBE Software

 

So, I support the request, acknowledging it is easier said than done! I hope they can allocate resources somehow.