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posted by martyb on Wednesday November 28 2018, @09:34PM   Printer-friendly
from the it's-called-FORmula-TRANslator-for-a-reason dept.

While it may not be widely appreciated, the Fortran programming language is still a thing. Last year, NASA ended up being overwhelmed by the sheer number of responses to their contest to optimize a Navier-Stokes equations solver used to model aerodynamics, to be evaluated on the Pleiades supercomputer. Fastest implmentation would have won the first prize, however there were far too many to evaluate. Fortran is quite old but neither outdated nor complex and nothing beats it for number crunching. So in many cases it is still the right tool for the job.

Many thought that the competition will never start due to the lack of applicants. In fact, it was cancelled for the exact opposite reason.

Quoting NASA's Press Release: «The extremely high number of applicants, more than 1,800, coupled with the difficulty in satisfying the extensive vetting requirements to control the public distribution of the software made it unlikely we would achieve the challenge's original objectives in a timely manner.»

Next up, MUMPS?


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  • (Score: 3, Touché) by All Your Lawn Are Belong To Us on Wednesday November 28 2018, @10:56PM (1 child)

    by All Your Lawn Are Belong To Us (6553) on Wednesday November 28 2018, @10:56PM (#767554) Journal


    1 REM THE GREATEST, COOLEST PROGRAM EVER!!!!!
    5 CLS
    10 INPUT "Did you really learn FORTRAN before BASIC";A$
    20 IF A$="NO" THEN PRINT "I didn't think so. You said one of the first."
    25 IF A$<>"NO" GOTO 40
    30 GOTO 60
    40 IF A$="YES" THEN PRINT "Liar! Nobody would learn BASIC after FORTRAN!"
    45 IF A$="YES" THEN GOTO 60
    50 PRINT "You need to answer YES or NO"
    55 GOTO 10
    60 PRINT "You stink!"

    --
    This sig for rent.
    Starting Score:    1  point
    Moderation   +1  
       Touché=1, Total=1
    Extra 'Touché' Modifier   0  
    Karma-Bonus Modifier   +1  

    Total Score:   3  
  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday November 29 2018, @10:27AM

    by Anonymous Coward on Thursday November 29 2018, @10:27AM (#767697)

    My answer is "No"