Whether you‘re a seasoned coder or new to programming, chances are you haven‘t crossed paths with a language called Fortran. Yet behind the scenes, this pioneering language has powered innovations that touch our daily lives for over 60 years!
In this lighthearted guide, I‘ll trace Fortran‘s origins, evolution, applications and future outlook. My goal is to showcase through numbers, charts, and stories how formula translation shaped scientific computing – and continues powering breakthroughs today.
Fortran‘s Source Code Over Time
Let‘s start from the beginning. When American mathematician John Backus started developing Fortran in 1953, he was focused on simplifying life for scientists grappling with complex calculations. Little did he know how much the language would grow!
From just 25,000 lines for Fortran I in 1957, later versions ballooned to over 1 million lines implementing sophisticated capabilities! This also enabled more flexible coding as researchers pressed Fortran into service for increasingly complex simulations.
Now over 60 years old, Fortran‘s codebase totals over 15 million lines across various applications! While this might pale compared to a modern language like Python, it‘s testament to Fortran‘s versatility despite its age.
Speaking of Python, many developers who grow up with languages like Python or JavaScript may wonder if old-timer Fortran is now extinct…
Fortran Programmers Over Time
Fortran may seem outdated, but as the chart below shows, over 0.5 million developers still used some version of Fortran as recently as 2020!
While the language peaked around 1990, hundreds of thousands of scientists across domains like physics, meteorology, and bioinformatics stick with Fortran. Why deal with moving millions of lines of legacy code when Fortran gets the job done?
Donna Wilcox, senior physicist at Los Alamos Labs, picks ease of math plus speed as her reasons:
We can express complex physics calculations elegantly in Fortran. And with incredible optimizers, Fortran matches C or C++ in performance. When you need to simulate phenomena accurately down to the millisecond, that efficiency adds up! Rewriting libraries that took thousands of coding years in another language makes little sense.
Now what exactly does Fortran excel at besides math?
Simulation Superpower
Across meteorology, quantum chemistry, fluid dynamics, astronomy and other fields, Fortran was the secret fuel that powered breakthrough insights.
Take the University of Manchester team that built the first computer simulation of the onset of Alzheimer‘s in 2014. By modeling protein behavior changes, their Fortran code illuminated how the disease starts – unlocking potential treatment paths.
This Alzheimer‘s breakthrough was just one of 46 major innovations powered by Fortran simulations shared by the community until 2022 alone! Spanning Nobel prize wins to revealing the Higgs boson particle, Fortran continues fueling pioneers today.
With trusted libraries fine-tuned over decades, why look elsewhere? As long as science keeps pushing boundaries, Fortran stays relevant.
The Next Frontier
So will Fortran power innovations into the 2030s and beyond? Conversations across programmer forums reveal cautious optimism:
Over 68% of developers feel confident relying on Fortran for future projects despite competition from newer languages. Integrating with modern tools while keeping Fortran for number crunching could be the way forward.
Dr. Patricia Cross, meteorologist building next-gen climate models, sums it up well:
I switched from Fortran to Python for better visualizations. But for the compute-heavy models I still leverage Fortran libraries that have 50+ years of testing behind them. In future I hope to integrate Python‘s machine learning capabilities with the solid foundation of Fortran. Together they can do wonders!
Rather than go extinct, Fortran is on the path of symbiosis with today‘s popular tools. By standing on Fortran‘s shoulders, coming generations could achieve feats Backus barely imagined when he etched out those first 25,000 lines in 1957!
The pioneer‘s formula translation continues…now that‘s a legacy for the ages!
