Has anyone ever programmed in f95?

If you have, if there are any hints, pointers, tips, etc...that you would be willing to share, that would be greatly appreciated as I am about to be venturing into the dark side.

It's been many many years since I programmed in Fortran. Hints for Fortran...flowcharts. Flowcharts are your friend. That and get an O'Rielly or complete Fortran book.

Amen to flowcharts and program diagrams. The time spent up front will be well worth it when it gets to debug time. Anything in particular you're looking to do with it? I doubt I'll get flamed for this, but unless you're going to be working on legacy apps, why would you spend the time to learn f95?

Quote: Originally Posted by mrcracker Amen to flowcharts and program diagrams. The time spent up front will be well worth it when it gets to debug time. Anything in particular you're looking to do with it? I doubt I'll get flamed for this, but unless you're going to be working on legacy apps, why would you spend the time to learn f95?

because all engineering/scientific computations/computational programs are based on fortran (in one form or another.)

The research project that I am working on right now has potential where I am going to be helping to write/re-write some of the subroutines that my prof. developed back in the day when he was in grad school.

Part of it is to update the code, part of it is that we are going to be incorporating some stuff that I am guessing that the f77, and f90 can't do or if they can, just not as well. Part of it will be a re-write and recompile using the latest compiler with optimizations to speed things up.

The smallest part of the project requires about 4 days and generates about 92000 data points in....7 variables.

Most engineering/scientific computations can't be done with C/C++ or anything else for that matter. I do know that newer programs would use C/C++ as the UI, and then make a call to fortran to do the actual solving.

Hence the name - fortran - formula translation.

(That's also about where my understanding of the differences stop as I do not have any experience whatsoever on either end.)

In the grand scheme of things, we also figure that it would be a good idea for me to learn it because with a master's in engineering in the horizons, and a still very possibly Ph.D., I know that at least from one prof from UTAustin mentioned that she wants her grad students to be able to program for themselves and be sufficiently knowledgeable in it, in addition to the mechanical side of things.

And knowing where I want to go, and what I want to do in R&D, it definitely can't hurt to learn/have as a skill as (much like taking calculus in high school), I can foresee this is as something that I will come across again.

In all honesty, I've never been very keen on programming. I am always fascinated by programmers because they can do something that I can't ever quite fully get a handle on. That, is also what I believe to be the biggest thing that's stopping me from getting a CE or CS degree.

Last I checked, Fortran was one of the few languages that lets you use extremely precise numbers. C languages (java, C++), usually use up to 32bit numbers (reals?). The way my CS101 professor told us, Fortran let you use 128bit or larger numbers in a process. Quite a bit more precise than the ladder logic/FBD/C emulation programming I'm trying to learn for PLCs.

EDIT: 'Sup Kettering buddy. The only stuff I know about Fortran is the stuff that Cater ranted about. :/

There are two things I've learned using Fortran although they often apply to other languages.

1] Checkpoints: If at some point in a program you compute A and then you compute B and A*B = Pi or some other such thing, actually check and MAKE SURE that if you multiply A*B it does equal Pi. Yeah it's extra code and you have to debug the extra code but trust me it's worth it.

2] State save: If a program is going to run more than 15 minutes, chances are some underpaid tape monkey will bring the system down for unscheduled maintenance when you are about 15 minutes from being done. Are you ready to lose six days work? A days work? Every so often, dump every important variable to a file and every time the program starts have it load that file so you can always pick up where you left off.

-MF

Quote: Originally Posted by ÃœBER<>POOP Last I checked, Fortran was one of the few languages that lets you use extremely precise numbers. C languages (java, C++), usually use up to 32bit numbers (reals?). The way my CS101 professor told us, Fortran let you use 128bit or larger numbers in a process. Quite a bit more precise than the ladder logic/FBD/C emulation programming I'm trying to learn for PLCs. EDIT: 'Sup Kettering buddy. The only stuff I know about Fortran is the stuff that Cater ranted about. :/

sup...
who's Cater??

re: state-save et. al.

good idea on both. thanks.

are there free fortran compilers available (either for win32 or Solaris)? like gcc....?

If you type free Fortran into Google, it does appear free compilers exist. Never used 1 so no recommendations ...

-MF

Quote: Originally Posted by Monsignor Funkibut If you type free Fortran into Google, it does appear free compilers exist. Never used 1 so no recommendations ... -MF

thanks....found 'em. And they're also available in Sun Studio Tools (which I am not sure if it is free or not - can't remember).

Will have to do some more digging.

*edit*
no entries for O'Reilly and Fortran (at least not f95).