FORTRAN Programming Language
FORTRAN was one of the first programming languages used in computers. FORTRAN began being created in 1954 by members of the IBM team and is still used today. The name FORTRAN is an acronym for FORmula TRANslation, because it was designed to allow easy translation of math formulas into code.
Often referred to as a scientific language, FORTRAN was the first high-level language, using the first compiler ever developed. Before the development of FORTRAN computer programmers were required to program in a machine or assembly code, which was extremely difficult and very time-consuming, with the task of debugging the code. At that time computers had very small memories (approximately 15KB, it was common then to count memory capacities in bits), they were slow and had very primitive operating systems. At those days it seemed that the only way is to program in assembly language.
The objective during its design was to create a programming language that would be: simple to learn, suitable for a wide variety of applications, machine independent, and would allow complex mathematical expressions to be stated similarly to regular algebraic data, while still being almost as efficient as previous language. Since FORTRAN was so much easier to code, programmers were able to write programs 5 times faster than before, while execution efficiency was only reduced by 20%, this allowed them to focus more on the problem solving aspects of a problem, and less on coding. Programs computing nuclear power reactor parameters took hours instead of weeks to write, and required much less programming skill. Another great advantage of the new invention was that programs now became portable and it was adopted by the scientific and military communities and used extensively in the Space Program and military projects.
FORTRAN was so innovative not only because it was the first high-level language, but also because of its compiler, which is credited as giving rise to the division of computer science now known as compiler theory.
Several years after its release FORTRAN had developed many different dialects, (due to special tweaking by programmers trying to make it better suit their personal needs) making it very difficult to transfer programs from one machine to another.
These problems lead the American Standards Association (now known as the American National Standards Association) to release its first Standard for a Programming Language in 1966. This first standardized version has come to be known as FORTRAN '66.
There were major differences between computing languages FORTRAN and C. Some include:
a) Scientifically oriented
b) Better optimized code
c) A lot of existing code
d) Easier to learn
e) More efficient mathematics
f) Easier to use and tougher
g) Better diagnostics
Bibliography
http://www.ibiblio.org/pub/languages/fortran/unfp.html
http://www.engin.umd.umich.edu/CIS/course.des/cis400/fortran/fortran.html
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fortran
By Housaam Takach
