FORTRAN

[liquidchild]

When my brother came home from college the other day, he told me he was taking fortran. I was WTF. Fortran?:? It's old as bejesus. Anyways, he said it was required, I don't know the slightest buit about programming in fortran, so if anyone knows it, please tell what practical uses there is for it if there are any.

[GnuVince]

It's still used extensively in the maths & research field, because it's very fat IIRC. Besides that, not used very much.

[kmj]

I think many schools require that those majoring in Engineering take a class in Fortran.

[liquidchild]

Yea, my brother is majoring in engineering

[sans-hubris]

It's still a great language for writing complex mathematical programs. Yeah, it's old, but it still works really well.

[buffto]

*buffto busts out the punch cards

[Strike]

/me notes that his engineering degree did not require learning FORTRAN

[jemfinch]

Originally posted by sans-hubris
It's still a great language for writing complex mathematical programs. Yeah, it's old, but it still works really well.

No, it's still a fast language for writing complex mathematical programs. It is by no stretch a "great" language for writing anything.

You want a "great" language for writing complex mathematical programs? Self. But it's really slow at that type of thing, unfortunately :(

Also perhaps check into Sisal (iirc the name), which is a functional language made for mathematical stuff.

Jeremy