Our most popular story this week was about Why Fortran Still Matters. Now, Intel’s James Reinders writes that not only is Fortran still relevant, it will be a big part of Exascale computing:
As far as we can tell, there are more Fortran programmers today than ever. Fortran is almost certainly a smaller % of the market than ten years ago but numerically it has grown. This is because the Fortran population is not growing nearly as fast as programming in general. But it is an important piece of the pie.
Our aim is to be the best Fortran compiler available any where. While we believe our compilers and libraries are excellent choices to assist in obtaining the best performance on Intel and non-Intel microprocessors, we recommend that you evaluate other compilers and libraries to determine which best meet your requirements. We hope to win your Fortran business by striving to offer the best performance of any compiler or library; please let us know if you find we do not.
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As a side note, “Legacy Software” is sometimes uses as a derogatory term to describe Fortran. In this video, Michale Wolfe from the Portand Group takes issue with that in this clip from the SC10 Analyst Crossfire program.
httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SwwAS7foHPo