Fortran

Fortran (/ˈfɔːrtræn/; formerly FORTRAN, derived from Formula Translation) is a general-purpose, compiled imperative programming language that is especially suited to numeric computation and scientific computing. Originally developed by IBM in the 1950s for scientific and engineering applications, FORTRAN came to dominate this area of programming early on and has been in continuous use for over six decades in computationally intensive areas such as numerical weather prediction, finite element analysis, computational fluid dynamics, computational physics, crystallography and computational chemistry. It is a popular language for high-performance computing and is used for programs that benchmark and rank the world's fastest supercomputers. Fortran encompasses a lineage of versions, each of which evolved to add extensions to the language while usually retaining compatibility with prior versions. Successive versions have added support for structured programmingand processing of character-based data (FORTRAN 77), array programming, modular programming and generic programming (Fortran 90), high performance Fortran (Fortran 95), object-oriented programming (Fortran 2003) and concurrent programming (Fortran 2008). Fortran's design was the basis for many other programming languages. Among the better known is BASIC, which is based on FORTRAN II with a number of syntax cleanups, notably better logical structures, and other changes to more easily work in an interactive environment. The names of earlier versions of the language through FORTRAN 77 were conventionally spelled in all-capitals (FORTRAN 77 was the last version in which the use of lowercase letters in keywords was strictly non-standard). The capitalization has been dropped in referring to newer versions beginning with Fortran 90. The official language standards now refer to the language as 'Fortran' rather than all-caps 'FORTRAN'. In late 1953, John W. Backus submitted a proposal to his superiors at IBM to develop a more practical alternative to assembly language for programming their IBM 704 mainframe computer.:69 Backus' historic FORTRAN team consisted of programmers Richard Goldberg, Sheldon F. Best, Harlan Herrick, Peter Sheridan, Roy Nutt, Robert Nelson, Irving Ziller, Harold Stern, Lois Haibt, and David Sayre. Its concepts included easier entry of equations into a computer, an idea developed by J. Halcombe Laning and demonstrated in the Laning and Zierler system of 1952. Some of these programmers were chess players and were chosen to work at IBM with the thought being they had logical minds. A draft specification for The IBM Mathematical Formula Translating System was completed by November 1954.:71 The first manual for FORTRAN appeared in October 1956,:72 with the first FORTRAN compiler delivered in April 1957.:75 This was the first optimizing compiler, because customers were reluctant to use a high-level programming language unless its compiler could generate code with performance comparable to that of hand-coded assembly language. While the community was skeptical that this new method could possibly outperform hand-coding, it reduced the number of programming statements necessary to operate a machine by a factor of 20, and quickly gained acceptance. John Backus said during a 1979 interview with Think, the IBM employee magazine, 'Much of my work has come from being lazy. I didn't like writing programs, and so, when I was working on the IBM 701, writing programs for computing missile trajectories, I started work on a programming system to make it easier to write programs.'