A big game changer for Fortran, especially in the Enterprise space, will be for Microsoft to partner with @certik and team to include Fortran as a first language, just like C++, in Visual Studio and VS Code straight out of the box and to fully integrate LFortran with these IDEs.
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I can only speak on the VS code part of this comment. A few years ago I suggested to one of the core maintainers of the C/C++ vscode cpptools extension to include Modern Fortran in their bundle, that was before I moved it to Fortran-lang. Their response albeit polite was negative. The conversation is somewhere on GitHub on the cpptools repo.
I think that’s a big ask for Microsoft to adopt Fortran as part of vscode. In the past I have worked close with some of their Devs to get things to work in Modern Fortran, but that requires quite a bit of free time, which is harder and harder to find nowadays.
I think for Fortran in vscode the way forward is to drive the extension’s development through Fortran-lang after securing some funding. Cool things that we have yet to implement is native integration with fpm, better handling of Python venvs and improved build system (cmake, makefiles) integration.
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I agree, I think the first step is to get the extension, compilers, fpm, etc. in great shape. That makes the conversation with big companies a lot easier to include things in their bundles. 
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I have been programming in Fortran since 1966 when it was FORTRAN II, mostly for nuclear engineering applications. I’m not sure what the consensus is now, but 20 years or so ago the Numerical Recipes books were considered ok as an introduction that one should look elsewhere for serious implementations of numerical methods. See for example: Alternatives to Numerical Recipes . There are a large number of libraries out there. A good list is at the National Institute of Standards and Technology: https://gams.nist.gov/cgi-bin/serve.cgi/Packages .
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Fortran is now #9 (October ranking)
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It sounds like Revolution 9 from The Beatles:
Number nine, number nine, number nine, number nine, number nine, number nine, number nine, number nine, number nine, number nine, number nine, number nine
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This month’s commentary is below. Fortran is arguably a “fast, data crunching language” that is easy to learn and safer than C and C++.
In today’s world, the amount of available data of whatever kind is increasing rapidly, and the demand to harvest this data is increasing accordingly. Hence, there is now a need for programming languages that are good in data manipulation, number crunching and being fast. Next to this, there are two other important characteristics high on everybody’s list: languages should be easy to learn and should be secure. “Easy to learn” because the resource pool of skilled software engineers is drying up and “secure” because of continuous cyber threats. Languages that have these three traits (being fast, being secure and easy to learn), have a good time now.
King of all, Python, is easy to learn and secure, but not fast. Hence, engineers are frantically looking for fast alternatives for Python. C++ is an obvious candidate, but it is considered “not secure” because of its explicit memory management. Rust is another candidate, although not easy to learn. Rust is, thanks to its emphasis on security and speed, making its way to the TIOBE index top 10 now.
The cry for fast, data crunching languages is also visible elsewhere in the TIOBE index. The language Mojo, which is a mix of Python and Swift, but much faster, enters the top 50 for the first time. The fact that this language is only 1 year old and already showing up, makes it a very promising language.
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We are coming for you, Go.
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Tiobe reading November 2024:
| Nov 2024 | Nov 2023 | Programming Language | Ratings | Change |
|----------+----------+----------------------+---------+--------|
| 1 | 1 | Python | 22.85% | +8.69% |
| 2 | 3 | C++ | 10.64% | +0.29% |
| 3 | 4 | Java | 9.60% | +1.26% |
| 4 | 2 | C | 9.01% | -2.76% |
| 5 | 5 | C# | 4.98% | -2.67% |
| 6 | 6 | JavaScript | 3.71% | +0.50% |
| 7 | 13 | Go | 2.35% | +1.16% |
| 8 | 12 | Fortran | 1.97% | +0.67% |
| 9 | 8 | Visual Basic | 1.95% | -0.15% |
| 10 | 16 | Delphi/Object Pascal | 1.48% | +0.33% |
with Paul Jansen commenting
This is an all time high for Go. What makes Go unique in the top 10 is that Go programs are fast and easy to deploy while the language is easy to learn. Python for instance is easy to learn but not fast, and deployment for larger Python programs is fragile due to dependencies on all kind of versioned libraries in the environment. The next hurdle for Go in the TIOBE index is JavaScript at position #6. That will be a tough one to pass. […] If annual trends continue this way, Go will bypass JavaScript within 3 years.
By the way, Nov 2024 is Fortran’s first time to hold place #8 in this metric (and simultaneously is the 8th month in a row to be among the top ten, like never before).
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Unbelievable. @FortranFan might be right that Fortran belongs into top 5! I think it’s doable, wait until our new compilers mature.
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From the Fortran subreddit: How did Fortran become a top 10 language again?
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In the Reddit thread, jvo203 wrote,
Whilst most of the responses here talk about accelerating Python with Fortran, I usually go one step further. Accelerate Fortran with the Intel ISPC SPMD C compiler, which generates SIMD-vectorised code that executes much faster in comparison to the native Fortran code. Then use C bindings to call the SPMD C functions from within Fortran.
The ISPC compiler also works on Apple Silicon as well as AMD CPUs, not just on Intel.
Has anyone here tried this?
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Tiobe’s readings for December are in; time for a brief review. Based on their
metrics, Fortran entered the group of “top ten” in April. Out of twelve months,
Fortran continously is this group for nine (never this long since 2016)
including November at rank 8 out of a set of 281 languages tracked and a reading
of 2.05% in July worth a rank 9, both alltime records of Fortran along these scales.
| month | rating | rank |
|---------+--------+------|
| 2024-01 | 1.09% | 12 |
| 2024-02 | 1.40% | 11 |
| 2024-03 | 1.22% | 14 |
|---------+--------+------|
| 2024-04 | 1.47% | 10 |
| 2024-05 | 1.24% | 10 |
| 2024-06 | 1.53% | 10 |
|---------+--------+------|
| 2024-07 | 2.05% | 9 |
| 2024-08 | 1.79% | 10 |
| 2024-09 | 1.78% | 10 |
|---------+--------+------|
| 2024-10 | 1.80% | 9 |
| 2024-11 | 1.97% | 8 |
| 2024-12 | 1.79% | 10 |
If one monitors the rank monthly assigned, the readings seem to consolidate
and to move toward the better:
In the violin plot above, each blue dot represents a monthly reading (i.e. for 2024, there are six right at 10). For the interval between December 2013 and July 2016, I didn’t find public records about Fortran’s rank attributed by Tiobe and didn’t actively search beyond snapshots in archives of the waybackmachine/the internet archive.
2024-12-10_output.zip.txt (34.0 KB)
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TIOBE, January 2025:
- Rank #10
- Rating 2.04%
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TIOBE continues to be a very accurate metric for programming languages. Incredible.
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March 2025: rank #11, rating 1.7%
March Headline: The dinosaurs strike back
It is interesting to see that very old languages are sneaking into the TIOBE index top 20. Fortran and Delphi are competing for a top 10 position, whereas COBOL and this month’s new entry Ada are a little bit further down the list. All of them show an uptrend. Why is this? Why aren’t the new and promising languages shining instead?
I think that it has to do with the many vital legacy systems that keep the world running. Most of them are developed with the aid of these dinosaur languages. Now that the last of the core developers of these systems are about to retire, companies avoid any risk and choose to keep the existing systems and even extend them rather than replacing them by newer systems based on more modern languages. Note that we name these languages dinosaurs, but they have evolved over time and are pretty up to date. All of them have new language definitions. Check out Fortran 2023, Delphi 12 (released in 2024), Ada 2023 and COBOL 2023. We might frown to see these languages being in the TIOBE index top 20, but they definitely serve a purpose and deserve credit.
Looking at the paragraph starting with “I think”, doesn’t the second part contradict the first? I maintain a list of Fortran codes on GitHub partly as a resource for Fortran programmers, but also in part to show that people are starting new projects in modern Fortran.
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I would say that the second part is correcting/tempering the first part. And it denotes an evolution in the way “old” (mature) languages are considered.
Looks good. They spell it Fortran, it has the right logo, all time high ranking in their system, nothing to complain!
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