FORTRAN

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Hackaday Links: May 12, 2024

May 12, 2024 by 9 Comments

Don’t pack your bags for the trip to exoplanet K2-18b quite yet — it turns out that the James Webb Space Telescope may not have detected signs of life there after all. Last year, astronomers reported the possible presence of dimethyl sulfide there, a gas that (at least on Earth) is generally associated with phytoplankton in the ocean. Webb used its infrared spectrometer instruments to look at the light from the planet’s star, a red dwarf about 111 light-years away, as it passed through the hydrogen-rich atmosphere. The finding was sort of incidental to the discovery of much stronger signals for methane and carbon dioxide, but it turns out that the DMS signal might have just been overlap from the methane signal. It’s too bad, because K2-18b seems to be somewhat Earth-like, if you can get over the lack of oxygen and the average temperature just below freezing. So, maybe not a great place to visit, but it would be nice to see if life, uh, found a way anywhere else in the universe.

Attention Fortran fans: your favorite language isn’t quite dead yet. In fact, it cracked the top ten on one recent survey, perhaps on the strength of its numerical and scientific applications. The “Programming Community Index” is perhaps a bit subjective, since it’s based on things like Google searches for references to particular languages. It’s no surprise then that Python tops such a list, but it’s still interesting that there’s enough interest in a 67-year-old programming language to make it onto the list. We’d probably not advise building a career around Fortran, but you never know.

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Fortran And WebAssembly: Bringing Zippy Linear Algebra To NodeJS & Browsers

April 8, 2024 by 15 Comments

With the rise of WebAssembly (wasm) it’s become easier than ever to run native code in a browser. As mostly just another platform to target, it would be remiss if Fortran was not a part of this effort, which is why a number of projects have sought to get Fortran supported on wasm.

For the ‘why’, [George Stagg] makes the point that software packages like BLAS and LAPACK for Fortran are still great for scientific computing, while the ‘how’ is a bit more hairy, but getting better courtesy of the still-in-development LLVM front-end for Fortran (flang-new). Using it for wasm is not straightforward yet, due to the lack of a wasm32 target, but as [George] demonstrates, this is easily patched around.

We reported on Fortran and wasm back in 2016, with things having changed somewhat in the intervening eight years (yes, that long). The Fortran-to-C translator utility (f2c) is effectively EOL, while LFortran is coming along but still missing many features. The Dragonegg GCC-frontend-for-LLVM project was the best shot in 2020 for Fortran and WebAssembly, but obsolete now. Classic Flang has been in LLVM for a while, but is to be replaced with what is now called flang-new. The wish by [George] is now to find a way to get his patched flang-new code for wasm support into the project.

In the article, the diff for patching the flang-new toolchain to target wasm is provided. During compilation of the standard Fortran runtime it was then found that the flang-new code assumes that target system sizeof() results are identical to those of the host system, which of course falls flat for wasm32. One more patch (or hardcoded hack, rather) later the ‘Hello World’ example in Fortran was up and running, clearing the way to build the BLAS (Basic Linear Algebra Subprograms) and LAPACK (Linear Algebra Package) libraries and create a few example projects in Fortran-for-wasm32 which uses them.

The advantage of being able to use extremely well-optimized software packages like these when limited to a browser environment should be obvious, in addition to the benefit of using existing codebases. It is certainly [George]’s hope that flang-new will soon officially support wasm (32 and 64-bit) as targets, and he actively seeks help with making this a reality.

Looking At Fortran In 100 Seconds

July 16, 2022 by 36 Comments

Usually, when we are talking about old computers, we are thinking of BASIC interpreters. But [Fireship] reminds us that it was originally Fortran and promises to give you the essentials in 100 seconds. We didn’t think you could do much in that short amount of time, but we have to admit that they did a pretty good job.

Of course, it doesn’t hurt that we know Fortran — you probably aren’t going to be able to put it on your resume after watching this video. On the other hand, we were impressed with how much they did squeeze in. If you haven’t touched Fortran since the 1960s and 1970s, you should know that it has changed. Pointers, dynamic memory allocation, and even objects are all possible. It is still a very capable language and very adept at crunching large sets of numbers. Besides, there are many sophisticated algorithms you can borrow from decades of Fortran development.

If you decide you want to have a go, there is, of course, GNU Fortran. Honestly, as much time as we spent writing Fortran in years past, we don’t recommend it for new job prospects. But if you have some period hardware and want an authentic experience, it might just be the way to go. Or, just fire up a browser if you want to play.

Not everyone agrees, though, that Fortran is on the wane. There are efforts to bring it even more up to date. You can even use it for web development.

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Frances Allen Optimised Your Code Without You Even Knowing

August 25, 2020 by 9 Comments

In 2020, our digital world and the software we use to create it are a towering structure, built upon countless layers of abstraction and building blocks — just think about all the translations and interactions that occur from loading a webpage. Whilst abstraction is undoubtedly a great thing, it only works if we’re building on solid ground; if the lower levels are stable and fast. What does that mean in practice? It means low-level, compiled languages, which can be heavily optimised and leveraged to make the most of computer hardware. One of the giants in this area was Frances Allen, who recently passed away in early August. Described by IBM as “a pioneer in compiler organization and optimization algorithms,” she made numerous significant contributions to the field. Continue reading “Frances Allen Optimised Your Code Without You Even Knowing” →

Tony Brooker And Autocode – The First High-level Language

January 2, 2020 by 32 Comments

The field of computer science has undeniably changed the world for virtually every single person by now. Certainly for you as Hackaday reader, but also for everyone around you, whether they’re working in the field themselves, or are simply enjoying the fruits of convenience it bears. What was once a highly specialized niche field for a few chosen people has since grown into a discipline that not only created one of the biggest industry in modern times, but also revolutionized every other industry, some a few times over.

The fascinating part about all this is the relatively short time span it took to get here, and with that the privilege to live in an era where some of the pioneers and innovators, the proverbial giants whose shoulders every one of us is standing on, are still among us. Sadly, one of them, [Tony Brooker], a pioneer of the early programming language concept known as Autocode, passed away in November. Reaching the remarkable age of 94, the truly sad part however is that this might be the first time you hear his name, and there’s a fair chance you never heard of Autocode either.

But Autocode was probably the first high-level computer language, and as such played a fundamental role in the development of whatever you’re coding in today. So to honor the memory of [Tony Brooker], let’s remember the work he did with Autocode, and the leap in computer science history that it represented.

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Fortran Goes Interactive

May 3, 2019 by 8 Comments

When you think of Fortran you probably think of punched cards and green bar paper. While it is true that Fortran isn’t the go-to language it used to be — pun unintentional — it still has a vibrant community of people who do serious number crunching. However, many members of that community have been seduced away by interactive tools that are also good at number crunching like MATLAB, Julian, and Python with special libraries. The LFortran project aims to create a Fortran environment with interactivity like Python, but retaining the speed that Fortran is known for.

The resulting tool is impressive. You can use it from Jupyter, can parse code targeting existing Fortran compilers, and supports Linux, Mac, and Windows. There is development to make the code fully interoperable with other languages like C or Python as well as take advantage of GPUs and other specialized hardware. They are also zeroing in on full Fortran 2018 support.

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Beatrice Tinsley And The Evolution Of Galaxies

April 17, 2018 by 10 Comments

It seems almost absurd now, but cosmologists once assumed that galaxies of a given type were all the same and didn’t change. Because of this assumption, galaxies were used as a redshift or light-based yardstick to measure distances in the universe. But what if some galaxies were intrinsically redder than others? Little to no thought was given to their origins, compositions, or evolution until Beatrice Tinsley came along.

Beatrice saw galaxies as changing bodies of stars. She believed that they grew, evolved, and died because they’re made of stars, and that’s what their star populations did. To lump all galaxies together and use them as a standard candle was an oversimplification. Beatrice created the first computer model of a galaxy to prove her point and in doing so, she founded the field of galaxy evolution.

If you’ve never heard of Beatrice, don’t feel bad. Just as her career was really beginning to take off, she developed cancer and died shortly after her 40th birthday. Though her life was short, her influence on cosmology is long-reaching. Continue reading “Beatrice Tinsley And The Evolution Of Galaxies” →