Fortran’s re-emergence as a top 20 language is notable. Just in July 2020, Tiobe ranked it as the 50th most popular language. But earlier this year, Fortran shot up to the 20th spot in Tiobe’s index.
Fortran, designed at IBM in the 1950s, remains popular for coding on the world’s most powerful supercomputers. However, some US Fortran standards committee members think the language is under threat from other languages eating into domains Fortran historically performed well in. The catch for Fortran is that developing new features also risks breaking old code. Programming languages: Python is on the verge of another big step forward | ZDNET
I think TIOBE did already change it’s parameter settings for the language ratings. It might be less the popularity of a programming language in favor of the demand of a language type. And if they refer to Wikipedia, it might be Fortran’s ‘native parallel computing capabilities (Coarray Fortran 2008/2018)’ that could play a role for Fortran’s high ranking yet. Notice: We’re about to enter the exascale (hardware) era with effects not limited to classical HPC.
The monthly TIOBE Programming Community Index will in future take into account new parameters when rating the popularity of programming languages. The plan is obviously to track the properties of languages such as their paradigms (for example functional or object-oriented) and type systems (such as static, dynamic or weakly typed). To break down these properties, TIOBE wants to refer to Wikipedia, according to Paul Jansen, CEO of TIOBE Software, and the index should also look at the demand for language types.
It is based on the results obtained with the query +"<language> programming" in 25 search engines. Note that most of these engines are Google and Amazon engines in different countries. But there is also the English Wikipedia.
Old technologies that have stuck around are sharks, not dinosaurs. They solve problems so well that they have survived the rapid changes that occur constantly in the technology world. Don’t bet against these technologies, and replace them only if you have a very good reason. These tools won’t be flashy, and they won’t be exciting, but they will get the job done without a lot of sleepless nights.
Old technologies that have stuck around are sharks, not dinosaurs.
is the Lindy effect, by which “the future life expectancy of some non-perishable things, like a technology or an idea, is proportional to their current age.”.
So Rust is 10 years old, I bet it will be around in another 10 years, but in 30 years? Who knows. Fortran is 65 years old and still around, so I would say the chance is decent Fortran will be around in 30 years. Just based on this heuristics.
My only comment is:
These tools won’t be flashy, and they won’t be exciting
Actually I think they can be. With proper modern tooling if the old technology genuinely (objectively) becomes better than younger technologies, people will get excited about it again.
Currently Fortran is better in a sense of easier to write and still usually performing (although not always…), but the tooling around it is so bad that it cancels this slight advantage completely for many use cases. However, by fixing the tooling and compilers to ensure Fortran is always the best performing, on any platform and easiest to write and use (dependencies, interactive/non-interactive use, …) — then we are talking. And I think that is doable and my goal.
My other point is that with just a few enhancements (see this thread) to the language standard also, Fortran can verily become feature-complete for scientific and technical computing. And it will pay rich dividends for the next several decades. I truly wish the standard can get things such as Fortran-suitable Generics, Exception Handling, etc. included ASAP.
Then with improved tooling and the ecosystem and standard facilities, Fortran can be at the top as the *lingua franca of scientific and technical computing.
Combining the Tiobe index and the RedMonk index may be a more accurate way to measure Fortran’s popularity. But that will still miss the activities in the Fortran forums, including the disclosure.
I looked at the Fortran tagged questions in Stack Overflow. The dude called Vladimir F has answered so many questions. Kudos to him.
Almost all my questions asked about Fortran on SO got responses from @VladimirF and Ian Bush (is he here?). I also had the privilege of being responded to by Dr. Fortran @sblionel. I have learned a lot from them, and of course from everyone here on the discourse. Many thanks!
It seems that the Top Programming Languages by IEEE is also a quite trustworthy ranking. Fortran ranks 25 in the 2021 edition. I hope to see it mounts steadily with the efforts of the community.
Since they divide the Fortran community like this, the ranking of either Fortran sub-group is low. The numbers do suggest caution in removing fixed format from the language. I wonder why many projects persist with fixed format.
Judging by past two years, the winter months (on the northern hemisphere) have been quite productive for Fortran-lang. I think we have the momentum necessary to keep the upwards trend.
