[Info-vax] Is C++ good in scientific computation? Why did Fortran lose its popularity?

[Michael Kraemer @ home]

ultr... at gmail.com wrote:
> Very good comparison by a Former member of ISO/ANSI J3 Fortran Standards Committee begs the question how C ever became the choice to do anything
> 
> https://www.quora.com/?digest_story=120247733&source=4
> 
> Craig Dedo January 30, 2019
> Former member of ISO/ANSI J3 Fortran Standards Committee
> 
> Is C++ good in scientific computation? Why did Fortran lose its popularity?
> 

There's more to scientific computing than just vector operation
and FORmula TRANslation.
Think of increasingly complex large scale experiments at
particle accelerators, satellites, telescopes and such.
Fortran 77 just isn't appropriate to handle their data definition,
reduction, storage and simulation.
That's why C/C++ entered the game since approx 1990.

And there's the "sociological" aspect as well.
In the 1970s, most student's first contact with IT
was the uni mainframe, where FORTRAN courses were compulsory.
In the 1990s, this has changed entirely.
Student's had grown up with PCs, Ataris, Amigas etc @home,
and their native language was C,
maybe Pascal or similarly exotic, but certainly not Fortran.