# 28.4 % admired Fortran in StackOverflow survey **URL:** \ **Category:** Meta\ **Created:** [July 25, 2024, 6:44am UTC](https://fortran-lang.discourse.group/t/28-4-admired-fortran-in-stackoverflow-survey/8385 "2024-07-25T06:44:34Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 12\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Shahid](https://yyz2.discourse-cdn.com/free1/user_avatar/fortran-lang.discourse.group/shahid/32/3672_2.png) [@Shahid](https://fortran-lang.discourse.group/u/Shahid)\ **Post date:** [July 25, 2024, 6:44am UTC](https://fortran-lang.discourse.group/t/28-4-admired-fortran-in-stackoverflow-survey/8385/1 "2024-07-25T06:44:34Z")
![StackOverflow](https://global.discourse-cdn.com/free1/uploads/fortran_lang/original/2X/b/b7ae97365b20963cdad624620cc4b5ac148495fd.png) [Technology | 2024 Stack Overflow Developer Survey](https://survey.stackoverflow.co/2024/technology#admired-and-desired) ---
**Author:** ![certik](https://yyz2.discourse-cdn.com/free1/user_avatar/fortran-lang.discourse.group/certik/32/4_2.png) [@certik](https://fortran-lang.discourse.group/u/certik)\ **Post date:** [July 25, 2024, 10:14am UTC](https://fortran-lang.discourse.group/t/28-4-admired-fortran-in-stackoverflow-survey/8385/2 "2024-07-25T10:14:29Z")
Nice, Fortran made the page. The absolute numbers are pretty good I would say, but even more important are the relative numbers. I was able to find the 2023 survey here: [Stack Overflow Developer Survey 2023](https://survey.stackoverflow.co/2023/#technology-admired-and-desired), Fortran has the following admired-desired percentages and rank (I manually counted the position, hopefully correctly): - 2023: 0.59% - 24.37%, 45th place - 2024: 0.9% - 28.4%, 44th place So the percentages show clear improvement. The admired (“the proportion of users that have used the same technology in the past year and want to continue using it”) increased by over 50% year to year. So I think this is good, if the trend continues, we are in good shape. ---
**Author:** ![Machalot](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/ebca7d/32.png) [@Machalot](https://fortran-lang.discourse.group/u/Machalot)\ **Post date:** [July 25, 2024, 5:56pm UTC](https://fortran-lang.discourse.group/t/28-4-admired-fortran-in-stackoverflow-survey/8385/3 "2024-07-25T17:56:13Z")
> [@certik](#): > > The admired (“the proportion of users that have used the same technology in the past year and want to continue using it”) increased by over 50% year to year. So I think this is good, if the trend continues, we are in good shape. This is a key point that I think is sometimes undervalued when we discuss language improvements. It’s not enough that we focus on adding features while rejecting aesthetic improvements. We need to make the language easy, or even an pleasure, to use; otherwise people will not use it. So when we see complaints about aspects of Fortran that are overly verbose or require multiple statements to do something that can be done with a single statement in another language, they are worth serious consideration. ---
**Author:** ![milancurcic](https://yyz2.discourse-cdn.com/free1/user_avatar/fortran-lang.discourse.group/milancurcic/32/2_2.png) [@milancurcic](https://fortran-lang.discourse.group/u/milancurcic)\ **Post date:** [July 25, 2024, 6:27pm UTC](https://fortran-lang.discourse.group/t/28-4-admired-fortran-in-stackoverflow-survey/8385/4 "2024-07-25T18:27:08Z")
> [@Machalot](#): > > We need to make the language easy, or even an pleasure, to use; otherwise people will not use it. Yes, and I’d say the same for the community and the quality of discussions. A language with unfriendly or obscure/closed communities attract fewer new users. I think this has significantly improved in the past 5 years. ---
**Author:** ![Machalot](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/ebca7d/32.png) [@Machalot](https://fortran-lang.discourse.group/u/Machalot)\ **Post date:** [July 25, 2024, 9:45pm UTC](https://fortran-lang.discourse.group/t/28-4-admired-fortran-in-stackoverflow-survey/8385/5 "2024-07-25T21:45:51Z")
Slightly off topic, but related to the popularity and future of Fortran in general… Did you know Python has largely replaced Fortran for HPC applications because Python performs really well due to its ability to interface with Fortran. 😁 ![image](https://global.discourse-cdn.com/free1/uploads/fortran_lang/original/2X/e/e02f74de476bfef86f2c4b2011eaf4e376fc2058.png) ---
**Author:** ![septc](https://yyz2.discourse-cdn.com/free1/user_avatar/fortran-lang.discourse.group/septc/32/77_2.png) [@septc](https://fortran-lang.discourse.group/u/septc)\ **Post date:** [July 25, 2024, 11:42pm UTC](https://fortran-lang.discourse.group/t/28-4-admired-fortran-in-stackoverflow-survey/8385/6 "2024-07-25T23:42:50Z")
I often see python + some fast libraries have been used rather often for computationally “heavy” calculations. For example, a recent one (for climate modeling, by Google Research, published recently in Nature) is: [https://research.google/blog/fast-accurate-climate-modeling-with-neuralgcm/](https://research.google/blog/fast-accurate-climate-modeling-with-neuralgcm/) - [Neural general circulation models for weather and climate | Nature](https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-024-07744-y) - [Google AI predicts long-term climate trends and weather — in minutes](https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-024-02391-9) - [[2311.07222] Neural General Circulation Models for Weather and Climate](https://arxiv.org/abs/2311.07222) - Code (Python/[JAX](https://jax.readthedocs.io/en/latest/index.html)) [GitHub - google-research/neuralgcm: Hybrid ML + physics model of the Earth's atmosphere](https://github.com/google-research/neuralgcm) I remember the Boltzmann generator (a kind of canonical sampling method for molecular/protein configurations) also used Python (together with ML libraries): - [https://www.science.org/doi/full/10.1126/science.aaw1147](https://www.science.org/doi/full/10.1126/science.aaw1147) - [[1812.01729] Boltzmann Generators -- Sampling Equilibrium States of Many-Body Systems with Deep Learning](https://arxiv.org/abs/1812.01729) - [GitHub - noegroup/bgflow: Boltzmann Generators and Normalizing Flows in PyTorch](https://github.com/noegroup/bgflow?tab=readme-ov-file) Another example may be FermiNet, > **[FermiNet: Quantum Physics and Chemistry from First Principles](https://deepmind.google/discover/blog/ferminet-quantum-physics-and-chemistry-from-first-principles/)** > > In an article recently published in Physical Review Research, we show how deep learning can help solve the fundamental equations of quantum mechanics for real-world systems. Not only is this an... - [Phys. Rev. Research 2, 033429 (2020) - Ab initio solution of the many-electron Schr\"odinger equation with deep neural networks](https://journals.aps.org/prresearch/abstract/10.1103/PhysRevResearch.2.033429) - Code: [GitHub - google-deepmind/ferminet: An implementation of the Fermionic Neural Network for ab-initio electronic structure calculations](https://github.com/google-deepmind/ferminet) ---
**Author:** ![septc](https://yyz2.discourse-cdn.com/free1/user_avatar/fortran-lang.discourse.group/septc/32/77_2.png) [@septc](https://fortran-lang.discourse.group/u/septc)\ **Post date:** [July 25, 2024, 11:49pm UTC](https://fortran-lang.discourse.group/t/28-4-admired-fortran-in-stackoverflow-survey/8385/7 "2024-07-25T23:49:51Z")
Apart from Python, RE the SO survey, I always wonder to what extent the percentage of that survey is actually meaningful, because it does not give any information about the correlation with actual users. As for me, I’ve never participated in that survey, and I wonder how many Fortran users actually voted in the survey (even for active SO users). PS. Not trying to “critisize” the OP’s post at all, but just my impression of the SO survey overall… ---
**Author:** ![rwmsu](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/48db29/32.png) [@rwmsu](https://fortran-lang.discourse.group/u/rwmsu)\ **Post date:** [July 26, 2024, 12:13am UTC](https://fortran-lang.discourse.group/t/28-4-admired-fortran-in-stackoverflow-survey/8385/8 "2024-07-26T00:13:51Z")
I’ll add one of the more impressive Python based codes from the CFD/turbulence modeling world, PyFR. [https://www.pyfr.org/](https://www.pyfr.org/) [https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0021999116307136](https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0021999116307136) [https://www.computer.org/csdl/magazine/cs/5555/01/09430703/1tzui7afJ6g](https://www.computer.org/csdl/magazine/cs/5555/01/09430703/1tzui7afJ6g) ---
**Author:** ![FortranFan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/96bed5/32.png) [@FortranFan](https://fortran-lang.discourse.group/u/FortranFan)\ **Post date:** [July 26, 2024, 2:04am UTC](https://fortran-lang.discourse.group/t/28-4-admired-fortran-in-stackoverflow-survey/8385/9 "2024-07-26T02:04:02Z")
> [@milancurcic](#): > > … A language with unfriendly or obscure/closed communities attract fewer new users … A programming language with **snowflake** -free communities that welcome and withstand fierce criticisms of the language and work hard and positively to do more and faster become worthy of its users. ---
**Author:** ![milancurcic](https://yyz2.discourse-cdn.com/free1/user_avatar/fortran-lang.discourse.group/milancurcic/32/2_2.png) [@milancurcic](https://fortran-lang.discourse.group/u/milancurcic)\ **Post date:** [July 26, 2024, 2:38am UTC](https://fortran-lang.discourse.group/t/28-4-admired-fortran-in-stackoverflow-survey/8385/10 "2024-07-26T02:38:49Z")
I couldn’t agree more! ---
**Author:** ![ivanpribec](https://yyz2.discourse-cdn.com/free1/user_avatar/fortran-lang.discourse.group/ivanpribec/32/3290_2.png) [@ivanpribec](https://fortran-lang.discourse.group/u/ivanpribec)\ **Post date:** [July 26, 2024, 4:49am UTC](https://fortran-lang.discourse.group/t/28-4-admired-fortran-in-stackoverflow-survey/8385/11 "2024-07-26T04:49:19Z")
There are also some FDM and spectral-based solvers in Python: - [https://www.devitoproject.org/](https://www.devitoproject.org/) - [https://dedalus-project.org/](https://dedalus-project.org/) Also several powerful Python FEM frameworks, such as FEniCs and FireDrake: - [https://www.firedrakeproject.org/](https://www.firedrakeproject.org/) - [https://fenicsproject.org/](https://fenicsproject.org/) The UFM language these are based on isn’t too far from Fortran. One more recent one, again using a Python code generator that outputs C++ (or even SIMD-heavy assembly): > **[Code Generation and Performance Engineering for Matrix-Free Finite Element...](https://arxiv.org/abs/2404.08371)** > > This paper introduces a code generator designed for node-level optimized, extreme-scalable, matrix-free finite element operators on hybrid tetrahedral grids. It optimizes the local evaluation of bilinear forms through various techniques including... The authors went all the way to 10^12 degrees of freedom. ---
**Author:** ![Beliavsky](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/ba8739/32.png) [@Beliavsky](https://fortran-lang.discourse.group/u/Beliavsky)\ **Post date:** [July 26, 2024, 12:19pm UTC](https://fortran-lang.discourse.group/t/28-4-admired-fortran-in-stackoverflow-survey/8385/12 "2024-07-26T12:19:35Z")
Filtering the [Python Package Index](https://pypi.org/) by programming language gives C 1763 C++ 1941 Cython 1214 Fortran 220 Java 160 Javascript 2331 Python 10000+ Rust 1822 SQL 334 Unix Shell 388 Other languages are used in fewer packages. Searching for Python in my list of Fortran codes on GitHub gives 129 hits.