Should one learn a non-legacy language before learning Fortran?

Question

I’m advising another person who has no programming education or background (beyond trying out AutoLISP and Excel VBA once or twice), who runs scientific simulations using Fortran software written by others and who now finds she’d benefit from being able to program in Fortran herself.

I can see two main approaches to this:

1. Learning e.g. Python as the first language (in order to avoid getting trapped into legacy thinking) and then dive into the legacy of Fortran working backwards in time from Fortran 95.

2. Skip the indirection with a contemporary language and start directly with Fortran 95 and dig backwards from there.

So my questions are:

1. Should someone who’d mainly need Fortran just start with Fortran or learn a non-legacy language first?

2. How much effort one should expect to put into learning before being able to do some useful simulation work in Fortran?

I’ve read the SO question about learning Fortran in the modern era, but it seemed to be about a case where the person learning Fortran is already a software developer.

Answer 1

I think she should learn the language she has use for immediately (Fortran), and then branch out into other languages from there. An idea that seems to be prominent in programming circles is the idea that exposure to certain programming languages can "scar" a person and make them unable to learn new ways of doing things. This is not really so.

Answer 2

You should NOT start with fortran. I have a close friend who found herself in a similar situation. She was writing Physics simulations in C. I taught her python, and she rewrote the simulation such that it executes in 1 hour instead of 1 week. Starting with a legacy language like fortran will limit your ability to reason about problems, and it will make it harder to write fast code. Most anything that can be done in fortran can be done in a more modern language as well or better than in fortran.

Answer 3

Learning to program is much easier when properly motivated. Learning Fortran first will naturally affect how she thinks about programming; but this does not necessarily have to be bad. (There has been several studies about how to figure out which people have a "natural talent" for programming, and one study (I've forgotten the details) showed that programming ability was highly correlated to the ability of constructing consistent mental models of problems and being able to follow this mental model (even if it in fact was incorrect.))

Answer 4

If she's going to mostly be working with legacy code in Fortran, I'd stick to Fortran. Knowing Fortran isn't going to hold anyone back from learning other languages. Learning Fortran will get her up and running more quickly and allow her to leverage more of the code she has at her disposal to model from. Fortran was a pretty simple language in terms of the constructs that are available. It's not like she needs to learn OOP in a simpler form before tackling a big project in language X. It's 6 spaces and an IMPLICIT NONE away from BASIC. Start there and get simulating.

Answer 5

I think that she should start with modern Fortran. The addition of modules, derived types, array intrinsic functions, and improved loop constructs make Fortran 90 and forward much easier to work with than the older, deprecated, and truly "legacy" FORTRAN 77.

Will her introductory experience affect how she thinks about programming? Of course. If it was FORTRAN 77 you were asking about, I would have to say start with something else. However, with modern Fortran, you can learn about objects, data hiding, recursion, pointers, dynamic memory allocation, and more - techniques that will definitely serve her well when it comes to branch out into other languages.

To directly answer your questions, then:

1. Someone who will mainly need Fortran should learn modern Fortran.

2. One needn't put in a great deal of time to be able to do useful simulations, particularly if other code/libraries are available as a starting point. I find that this is where the built-in array support can come in very handy.

Answer 6

Have her learn FORTRAN. If she decides to learn other programming languages latter, then go with a more modern language. If she does it the other way around she will be frustrated by the restrictions of FORTRAN. She also would have to expend twice the effort to learn two languages if she starts with something other then FORTRAN. I know many people say that learning the second language should be easier then the first, I think this is only true if they are similar.

contrary to popular belief learning older languages do not cause mental defects (we older programmers were that way to begin with).

Answer 7

If she's got what it takes, then Fortran 95 is probably as good a place to start as any. Fortran 95 isn't a terrible language. It has decent control structures and can support structured programming. Plenty of good programmers started with worse languages, such as Fortran 66 or 77 or microcomputer Basics that only allowed two character variable names and only had for loops and goto for flow control.

Answer 8

For understanding simulations, it might be better to start with something like Smalltalk. Squeak is a free environment. The main advantage of using Smalltalk to start building simulations is that it allows one to focus on getting a well-structured solution. Smalltalks have the best development environment (refactoring browsers, debuggers, live inspection of object memory). Once you run into performance issues, migrate to fortran. One thing to look into is the availability of libraries for the simulation domain. It could be that in a different (modern) language the availability is much better. That might shift my advice to a different language.

Answer 9

Why does she think she'll benefit from writing FORTRAN herself?
I am supposing it is so that she can work with the simulations she uses, therefore she should learn that FORTRAN first.
If she then finds that she likes programming and wants to do something aside the simulations, she can come back to you and start the conversation again with a different persepective.