[TUHS] RIP John Backus

[Clem Cole]

On Fri, Mar 16, 2018 at 5:52 PM, Dave Horsfall <dave at horsfall.org> wrote:

> We lost computer pioneer John Backus on this day in 2007; amongst other
> things he gave us FORTRAN (yuck!) and BNF, which is ironic, really, because
> FORTRAN has no syntax to speak of
> ​.
>

​Dave -- please be careful about the disparaging comments.

As a system's person, I don't need to write in it, (although I can
understand it when I need too) and neither do I believe many of our
colleagues in the system business; since it is not the right thing for my
or their needs.  But Fortran has a place and it still pays my and many of
our salaries (and I happen to know it paid the salary if a number of folks
on this list and I think, like me still does).


​I'll save people on the list from the full argument and try to keep a
flame war from starting but I offer that you instead read:  Clem Cole's
answer to Is Fortran Still Alive
<https://www.quora.com/Is-Fortran-still-alive/answer/Clem-Cole>  and
Clem Cole's answer to Why is the Fortran language still in use and (most
importantly) relevant in HPC? Is it just because this language has
tremendous numerical calculation capability which is an important part of
HPC?
<https://www.quora.com/Why-is-the-Fortran-language-still-in-use-and-most-importantly-relevant-in-HPC-Is-it-just-because-this-language-has-tremendous-numerical-calculation-capability-which-is-an-important-part-of-HPC/answer/Clem-Cole>


Simply out (and for those) that don't want to reads the more details
arguments - please don't try to compare Fortran to C, Pascal, Java, Rust *etc.
*or many other languages - please do not knock it because you don't need to
use it or look down on those that do use because it helps them.  But,
instead remember that is in your toolbox, has been and is *an appropriate
solution for many problems*, and is likely to continue to be for many years.

Are their 'better' tools, like the QUERTY keyboard? Sure but they not
economically interesting.  I ask you to please be kind before you make
disparaging comments.   As I point out in those answer, even if I could
wave wand and have all those oce that we have today magically rewritten
into a modern language from C to Rust or something else that strikes your
fancy, there is no way it would be economical (much less wise) to try to
revalidate the years and years of data that Fortran based codes have
created.

As I close, I try to remember that many Frenchman have been
historical annoyed  because French, which is said to be a 'pure and
beautiful' did not become the universal world language, and the wretched
and crass anglo saxon English did.  Yet many 'British' be moan that
'American' is not English either.   And many 'merkins' can hardly
understand people in many parts of the world .  It does not make either
anyone language better than the other.  Both are useful - communications is
passing information between to parties and they all usually get the job
done, some more easily than others.

Today's Fortran is not, the language Backus and team at IBM created in the
late 1950s.   Like English (or 'American English' maybe), it has morphed a
bit and taken ideas from other languages.

'nuf said I hope.

Clem


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