from Hacker News

How Thou Canst Maketh a Fine Program in Fortran

by AdamFernandez on 6/6/17, 4:03 PM with 36 comments

  • by sbierwagen on 6/6/17, 4:53 PM

    Needed more https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Long_s

    Turns

    In troth, the Fortran programming language is well suited for those persons who are scientific and who engineer. Named so for the phrase “Formula Translation,” it is a language exquisite for programming machines.

    into

    In troth, the Fortran programming language is well suited for thoſe perſons who are scientific and who engineer. Named so for the phraſe “Formula Tranſlation,” it is a language exquiſite for programming machines.

    Way better.

  • by jejones3141 on 6/6/17, 6:21 PM

    Author, I pray ye learn Early Modern English verb conjugation, the declension of "thou", and how the occurrence of periphrastic "do" changed with the era, that your titles, headings, and text might fall easily upon the eye and mind of the reader.

    (Seriously, nice post, and well done on the title graphic font choice.)

  • by sevensor on 6/6/17, 4:58 PM

    Author missed a trick by not using a font with a long S. Also had some trouble declining thee/thou/thy, which is admittedly hard for a modern speaker.

  • by Insanity on 6/6/17, 4:45 PM

    I'm thoroughly surprised to see that Fortran is still being updated (with an upgrade still in the works for next year apperantly). I had no idea.

    I'll give it a shot as it seems interesting to at least have worked in it a bit, but I do wonder, where is Fortran used these days?

    A quick glance at Tiobe[1] shows that it scored a bit higher than Haskell, Scala and Kotlin. Can anyone explain me why?

    [1]: https://www.tiobe.com/tiobe-index/

  • by jjtheblunt on 6/6/17, 5:36 PM

    maketh is 3rd person singular, but should be an infinitive. cutesy middle english "fail"

  • by jimktrains2 on 6/6/17, 5:57 PM

    I guess I was expecting a little more substance to the post. It seems like a long-winded for the little substance in it.

  • by squozzer on 6/7/17, 4:29 PM

    What?!?!?! No separate linking step?!?!?! Heresy, says I.