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

[Rich Alderson]

Bill Gunshannon <bill.gunshannon at gmail.com> writes:

> 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.

Yup, a pair of 1311s.  No tape drives, though.

The system was installed at the school district offices; because it was not
utilized up to the lease minimum (IBM, after all), it was decided to offer a
half-year "Computer Math" class in all the high schools in the district.  That
was in the fall semester, with linear algebra in the spring (1967 and 1968);
the class was so popular that it was offered again in spring 1969, so I got to
take it after all, at the end of my senior year.

Look at all the things which have come out of being president of the chess club
in 1968...

-- 
Rich Alderson					  news at alderson.users.panix.com
      Audendum est, et veritas investiganda; quam etiamsi non assequamur,
	  omnino tamen proprius, quam nunc sumus, ad eam perveniemus.
									--Galen