[Info-vax] [OT] Current students apparently can't read Fortran code...

[Galen]

> Fortran 66 was available for most of that period.
> 
> Fortran IV is mostly the same as Fortran 66.
> 
> And functions and subroutines was (per public sources - before
> my time) added in Fortran II in 1958.
> 
> So not quite as bad.
> 
> Anything text sucked big time in Fortran IV/66 but climate
> model should not be impacted by that.
> 

It’s possible that, just as today, “seasoned” (I.e. older, perhaps set in
their ways) programmers in the 1960’s and 1970’s may not have used
new-dangled features like IF/THEN/ELSE or more modern loop constructs. And
may actually have liked assigned or computed GOTOs, three-branch IF, etc.

Or they may have been constrained by out-of-date compilers on their
platforms.