2y ago

Over 65 years ago this month, researchers ran the first FORTRAN program

This is considered as the beginning of general-purpose programming. ( Image credits : NASA and MIT_CSAIL )

22 comments

But job listing will still be asking for 70 years of FORTRAN experience.
- Can you really be proficient in a language you didn't invent?
  
  🤔Guido van Rossum: "Do not send me email like this"
Titles like these make me chortle. Over 65 years ago this month means it could be 70, 80, 100 etc.
- The funniest part to me is how 'this month' is absolutely meaningless. It was over 65 years ago last month too, and the month before that
  
  Not if it happened in September
  A draft specification for The IBM Mathematical Formula Translating System was completed by November 1954. The first manual for FORTRAN appeared in October 1956 with the first FORTRAN compiler delivered in April 1957.
  None of those milestones though...
  Never mind someone found it: https://www.edn.com/1st-fortran-program-runs-september-20-1954/
- Makes it easier to repost!
Source? I'd like to read the story
Edit. https://www.edn.com/1st-fortran-program-runs-september-20-1954/
And the program finally completed today! 🎉
Any idea what that first program was?
- I'm guessing "Hello world" followed shortly by "send nudes".
- Considering fortran was designed for numerical computation, it was probably a east to check mathematical identity like n*(n+1)/2 = 0 + 1 + 2 + ... + n
FORTRAN IV was the first language I learned to program in. Punch cards!!!
- That must've been a punch of fun
The tile flooring in the image is asbestos, fun fact
Any names of these two people ? I'll try reverse search
And you're saying it Fort_ran_?
That was a mistake even back then
- Fortran was actually a pretty solid language, and I actually regularly use programs that still have pieces written in Fortran.
  
  Out of curiosity, is a FORTRAN compiler at all self-bootsrapping in a manner akin to Forth? That is, you define a few primitives and then define the rest of the language in terms of those primitives?

22 comments