13 Jan
2022
13 Jan
'22
12:30 p.m.
On Jan 12, 2022, at 20:23, Douglas McIlroy
<douglas.mcilroy(a)dartmouth.edu> wrote:
... users' reports that the derived Ratfort was easier to
understand than the Fortran they had written themselves.
In the late 70's, I started working on some Fortran code for an astrophysicist. The
code was written in Fortran II and I found it very difficult to read. So, I turned it
into VAX VMS Fortran 77 (not Ratfor, but a lot closer to it :-).
The scientist was _not_ happy, saying that he would no longer be able to read his code. I
informed him that (a) Fortran 77 was the current standard and (b) he was welcome to go
back to his Fortran II version, but that he'd have to do so without my assistance.
He grumbled a bit, but acquiesced...
-r