Fortran
A high-level programming language created in 1957, designed for scientific computing and numerical operations. It is known for high performance, backward compatibility, and native array support, and remains a core language for supercomputing and numerical libraries.
Core Facts
Timeline (last 90 days)
Argon and AntiGravity joined forces to autonomously rewrite an old Fortran codebase into C++ and Rust, with the new Rust version running 20% faster.
The U.S. Weather Bureau, the European Centre for Medium-Range Weather Forecasts, NASA's simulation systems, and the reference implementations of BLAS and LAPACK all have deep ties to Fortran.
Coarrays are a native parallel programming mechanism introduced in Fortran 2008, coordinating parallel execution through codimension and built-in procedures such as this_image(), num_images(), and sync all.
DO CONCURRENT is a loop construct introduced in Fortran 2008 and further refined in 2018, used to explicitly declare that there are no order dependencies between loop iterations, allowing the compiler to automatically parallelize or vectorize.
BLAS defines low-level operation interfaces such as vector addition and matrix multiplication, and LAPACK implements higher-level algorithms such as linear equation solving, eigenvalue decomposition, and singular value decomposition on top of it, both of which were originally written in Fortran 77 with publicly available reference implementations.
The biggest problem Fortran faces is a talent gap, as most university courses have shifted to Python and C++.
The Fortran community adapts to GPUs and AI accelerator cards through solutions such as OpenMP, OpenACC and CUDA Fortran.
In many benchmarks, Fortran code is faster than or on par with equivalent C code.
Fortran was born in 1957 and is a programming language.
Fortran is fifteen years older than the C language and thirty-four years older than Python.
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All Facts (20)
Fortran ushered in the era of high-level languages in 1957.
70%UnverifiedEach standard evolution of Fortran has preserved backward compatibility with old code.
50%UnverifiedC/C++ uses row-major memory layout, which is exactly the opposite of Fortran's column-major.
50%UnverifiedCoarrays are a native parallel programming mechanism introduced in Fortran 2008, coordinating parallel execution through codimension and built-in procedures such as this_image(), num_images(), and sync all.
50%UnverifiedDO CONCURRENT is a loop construct introduced in Fortran 2008 and further refined in 2018, used to explicitly declare that there are no order dependencies between loop iterations, allowing the compiler to automatically parallelize or vectorize.
50%UnverifiedBLAS defines low-level operation interfaces such as vector addition and matrix multiplication, and LAPACK implements higher-level algorithms such as linear equation solving, eigenvalue decomposition, and singular value decomposition on top of it, both of which were originally written in Fortran 77 with publicly available reference implementations.
50%UnverifiedThe biggest problem Fortran faces is a talent gap, as most university courses have shifted to Python and C++.
50%UnverifiedThe Fortran community adapts to GPUs and AI accelerator cards through solutions such as OpenMP, OpenACC and CUDA Fortran.
50%UnverifiedIn many benchmarks, Fortran code is faster than or on par with equivalent C code.
50%UnverifiedFortran was born in 1957 and is a programming language.
50%UnverifiedFortran is fifteen years older than the C language and thirty-four years older than Python.
50%UnverifiedThe standard versions Fortran has gone through include FORTRAN 66, 77, 90, 95, 2003, 2008, 2018, up to the latest 2023 standard.
50%UnverifiedThe U.S. Weather Bureau, the European Centre for Medium-Range Weather Forecasts, NASA's simulation systems, and the reference implementations of BLAS and LAPACK all have deep ties to Fortran.
50%UnverifiedSince its birth, Fortran has used column-major order memory layout, that is, multidimensional arrays are arranged contiguously by column in memory, with the leftmost index varying fastest.
50%UnverifiedEarly SPICE code was written in Fortran or C, which presents a high barrier for modern developers.
50%UnverifiedFortran, born in 1957, is one of the oldest high-level programming languages still in existence and remains widely used today in scientific computing fields such as weather forecasting, fluid dynamics, and nuclear physics simulation.
50%UnverifiedFortran and Verilog have extremely limited publicly available code on the internet, resulting in severely insufficient coverage in the pre-training corpora of general-purpose large models.
50%UnverifiedWorld-leading climate models such as CESM and WRF, as well as core solvers in fields like nuclear physics and fluid dynamics, still run large amounts of Fortran code.
50%UnverifiedFor 250,000 lines of Fortran code, OpenACC is typically the preferred starting point, with CUDA used to optimize performance-critical sections after a successful migration.
50%UnverifiedLISP was invented by John McCarthy in 1958 and is the second oldest high-level programming language in history (after Fortran only).
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