Purpose of this guide
FORTRAN is not a dead language, the majority of programs used and
developed in the scientific and engineering communities are still
written in FORTRAN 77 or Fortran 90. High-performance computing is
mostly done in one of the parallel dialects of Fortran.
FORTRAN 77, and of course the much improved Fortran 90, are better
suited for numerical computation than most programming languages
(see "Comparison between FORTRAN and C"). Fortran is expected to
further improve in this respect (see "Suggestions for Fortran 2000").
This guide concentrates on topics which are not discussed in
ordinary Fortran courses and regular textbooks: good programming
practics, and various technical and numerical issues. We aim to
provide a clear exposition of these topics as they are essential
for good programming, especially for large programming projects .
How to get this guide
The guide and the information it contains are free (GNU-wise),
and will continue to be so. It is the collective property of
all these kind people who contributed some information to it.
All URLs are updated regularly.
Our mirror sites are:
If you want to mirror the guide, FTP the files at least
twice a week, and please drop me a note.
Some interesting topics are not discussed, because they were
deemed too advanced or of only limited relevance. for example
we have omitted treatment of the following features:
Source code analyzers (except FTNCHEK)
Module management systems and utilities (VMS/MMS, UNIX/make)
Profilers (VMS/PCA, UNIX/prof, UNIX/gprof, SGI/pixie,
Code management systems (VMS/CMS, VMS/RCS, UNIX/RCS, UNIX/SCCS)
Throughout the text, operating system commands are indicated for
the following operating systems: VMS, SunOS, IRIX, ULTRIX,
DUNIX (formerly OSF/1), UNICOS, AIX and HP-UX.
It may not help much, but we would like to say again that personal
flaming and rude behaviour are detrimental to human relations and
the free flow of information in particular.
Keith Bierman who contributed so many insightful and instructive
comments, and for his kindness at the early stages that kept the
Walt Brainerd for a number of very good comments and moral support.
Arne Vajhoej for his substantial contributions to so many chapters,
and numerous other helpful suggestions. Without Arne the guide
probably would have aborted prematurely.
Steve Lionel for checking most of the DEC related info.
Clive Page for the good comments and interesting information,
and for the highly positive radiation.
Sergio Gelato for the substantial contributions to many chapters,
it's a pity he didn't have more time.
Dan Pop for the good comments and suggestions.
Dieter Britz for the good comments and moral support.
Craig Burley who patiently passed over the first two sections and
had many important comments, contributed interesting information,
and made some difficult and subtle points clear.
Timothy Prince for the many important comments on many chapters.
All errors and inaccuracies which remain in the text are the
who would appreciate notification of any that you find, as well
as of any comments and suggestions that you wish to make.
Special thanks to
The Hebrew University Computing Center for providing access
to all these operating systems, and to the dedicated staff
who patiently helped, in particular to Dudu Rashty for the
web access, Yehavi Bourvine and Juliana Solomon for the
anonymous ftp access.
Thanks a lot to the kind people who provides the mirror
Donald Ball, North Carolina University
Wojtek Sylwestrzak, ICM Warsaw University
Konrad Neuwirth, Vienna University
Vitaly A. Filatov, Novosibirsk State Technical University
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