On Tue, Feb 11, 2020 at 10:01 PM Larry McVoy <lm@mcvoy.com> wrote:

What little Fortran background I have suggests that the difference
might be mind set. Fortran programmers are formally trained (at least I
was, there was a whole semester devoted to this) in accumulated errors.
You did a deep dive into how to code stuff so that the error was reduced
each time instead of increased. It has a lot to do with how floating
point works, it's not exact like integers are.

Just a thought, but it might also be the training. My Dad (a mathematician and 'computer') passed a few years ago, I'd love to have asked him. But I suspect when he and his peeps were doing this with a slide rule or at best an Friden mechanical adding machine, they were acutely aware of how errors accumulated or not. When they started to convert their processes/techniques to Fortran in the early 1960s, I agree with you that I think they were conscious of what they were doing. I'm not sure modern CS types are taught the same things as what might be taught in a course being run by a pure scientist who cares in the same way folks like our mothers and fathers did in the 1950s and 60s.