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

[Bill Gunshannon]

On 4/13/22 22:01, Rich Alderson wrote:
> "Craig A. Berry" <craigberry at nospam.mac.com> writes:
> 
>> On 4/13/22 6:54 PM, Bob Gezelter wrote:
> 
>>> FORTRAN II (IBM 1620, circa 1960, 20K digits of storage) had full
>>> subroutines and functions.
> 
>> OK.  I read the Wikipedia article wrong, specifically with regard to
>> functions and subroutines.  The fact they had them doesn't mean they
>> were used.
> 
>>> Admittedly, many of these codes were not written to modern engineering
>>> standards, but one can decode them. Been there, done that (both in modern
>>> times, and when I was an undergraduate).
> 
>> Right.  And of course you can decode a 40,000-line program with no
>> comments and 6-digit identifiers.  But it's work.  Arguably not worth
>> the effort 10 years after they were written, much less 50.
> 
> FORTRAN IV was my first language, on an IBM 1401, in 1969.  Functions and
> subroutines were actively encouraged.
> 
> If you knew what you were talking about you might be dangerous.
> 

Wow, were you ever lucky.  I did 1401 in 1971 and all we got was
Autocoder.  I'll bet you even had disks.

bill