Fortran: what changed
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Title: Fortran
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| 1 | + | **Fortran** is a programming language originally developed in the early 1950s as an alternative to writing computer programs using [[Assembly language|assembly language]]. It is believed to be the first high-level language developed, and was intended both to make writing of programs easier, and potentially allow [[Source code|source code]] of them to be portable among different machines. | |
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| 3 | + | [[Niklaus Wirth]], who invented [[Pascal]], wrote the first Pascal [[Compiler|compiler]] using Fortran, because he was working on a Control Data Corporation (CDC) computer, and the dominant language for writing programs on CDC computers was Fortran. Many of the original constructs for Pascal come from either Fortran or the CDC implementation of Fortran. Once he had written the initial compiler, he was able to then rewrite the compiler in Pascal and use it to compile itself in the standard practice called bootstrapping. | |
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| 5 | + | The use of the [[Program]] statement is from CDC's implementation of Fortran. The use of the size specifiers (such as | |
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| 8 | + | Write (Value:5); | |
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| 10 | + | and | |
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| 13 | + | Writeln (Total:5:2); | |
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| 15 | + | in the [[Write|Write and Writeln]] [[Basic Pascal Tutorial/Chapter 1/Standard Functions|standard functions]] comes from the I and F specifiers in the Fortran FORMAT statement, respectively. | |
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| 18 | + | *From the Free Pascal wiki, page "Fortran", as it stood on 2023-01-25 after a change by Kai Burghardt, out of the wiki's dump of 2024-05-26. Copyright stays with the author who wrote it, according to the old wiki's [[Licensing]] page. If you have concerns about this material, [message the admin](/wiki-contact).* |