Sun Releases Fortran Replacement as OSS

sproketboy writes "Sun Microsystems has released an alpha version of a new programming language called Fortress to eventually replace Fortran for high performance scientific computing tasks. Fortress was designed specifically for multi-core processors and is published under the BSD license."

Doesn't make a difference.

[gardyloo]

In a hundred years, programmers will be using a language that's completely unrecognizable to modern users -- and it will be called "Fortran".

Re:What's it look like?

[gardyloo]

program Hello_world

### The following is the canonical 'Hello World' program implemented in fortress ###

load fortran77
      print *,"Hello World"

fortress.obfuscate

end program Hello_world

Cue Fortrain Jokes

[locokamil]

"God is REAL unless declared INTEGER"

"Q: What will the scientific programming language of 2050 look like? A: No one knows, but it will be called FORTRAN."

"CS without FORTRAN and COBOL is like birthday cake without ketchup and mustard."

"Consistently separating words by spaces became a general custom about the tenth century A.D., and lasted until about 1957, when FORTRAN abandoned the practice."

"The primary purpose of the DATA statement is to give names to constants; instead of referring to pi as 3.141592653589793 at every appearance, the variable PI can be given that value with a DATA statement and used instead of the longer form of the constant. This also simplifies modifying the program, should the value of pi change."

I'd actually venture that FORTRAN has more jokes about it than C. I for one welcome our FORTRESS-joke-making overlords.

Re:Doesn't make a difference.

[celardore]

Yep, programming languages advance by evolution, not intelligent design.

Thanks for shattering my illusions. I thought programming languages were as they were, are, and always will be. I'm going to sue you.

Re:Wellllllll...

[metamatic]

Perhaps by benefiting from the lessons learned with Java, they mean they're going to plan ahead and have just the one implementation of each major data structure, rather than (for example) 4 different array implementations.

Re:What's it look like?

[Goaway]

And most monitors will fail to display unambiguously, in any straightforward and reliable way.

You may not have noticed, but cutting-edge monitors nowadays are capable of displaying graphics, and not just text.

Re:What's it look like?

[glwtta]

Fortress uses a lot of unicode mathematical operators

This is also something I'm really looking forward to in Perl 6; I'm guessing the conversation went like this:

Guy: "Here's an idea - let's require the coders to use a lot of characters that aren't on the keyboard!"
Other Guy: "Brilliant!"

I'm sure productivity will skyrocket with this invention.

They also seem to have jumped on the (to me) unfathomable "using braces to clearly delineate code blocks is evil!" bandwagon. I guess it's what all the cool kids are doing these days.

Other than that, it looks really neat!

Re:Fortran has some coolness

[gardyloo]

Especially if you use something like C++ you know perfectly well how the resulting code will behave.

    I am not a programmer. I learned everything I know about programming from jokes going around the internet, like the "How to shoot yourself in the foot with different programming languages" one. The entry in that for C++ reads something like
 

C++
        You accidently create a dozen instances of yourself and shoot them all in the foot. Providing emergency medical assistance is impossible since you can't tell which are bitwise copies and which are just pointing at others and saying "That's me, over there."

Something doesn't quite agree with your post, though I'll be damned if I can tell what it is.

Re:Fortran has some coolness

[ananamouse]

>> OOP belongs in business... not in Molecular Dynamics. >Yes, because in physics, nothing is like anything else. (rolls eyes) First, let us assume a uniform, spherical keyboard...

Re:You will never replace Fortran

[daverabbitz]

Real men use punch-cards.

Re:Fortran has some coolness

[Thuktun]

Don't forget the oft-quoted line allegedly from Steve Haflich in comp.lang.c++, "When your hammer is C++, everything begins to look like a thumb."

Re:Doesn't make a difference.

[Mister Whirly]

"And on the 7th day God created Cobol, when he should have been resting..."