FORTRAN

The "IBM Mathematical FORmula TRANslating system", or FORTRAN, was the first successful "high-level" language (higher than assembly code that is). Developed by, amongst others, Backus. The language was introduced in 1954. It was designed primarily for scientific calculations, thus facilities for string handling and I/O (input and output) were almost non-existent. Further the only data structure supported was the array. The greatest weakness of FORTRAN programs is their lack of logical structure, consequently FORTRAN programs often become muddled and difficult to understand. However, the language marked a vast improvement over assembly code and other attempts at improving on such codes. For this reason alone it became extremely successful and is still used for numerical applications.

The general disadvantages associated with the initial versions of FORTRAN were:

1. That there were no standards hence FORTRAN programs that would successfully compile on one compiler would not necessarily do so on another. Eventually the American National Standards Authority (ANSI) developed a standard in 1966 (FORTRAN'66).
2. Because of its success programmers were reluctant to use anything else, consequently it was used for applications to which it was not suited, e.g. data processing.

The language has undergone revisions to take account of ideas on structured programming. The most notable being FORTRAN'77 and FORTRAN'90. The language is now

Created and maintained by Frans Coenen. Last updated 03 July 2001