Fortran 90 Programming
Spring of 2008 was the last time that I taught this class. It's been fun, but other adventures beckon. Material will be preserved at this web address as long as the University lets me have the disk space.
Check the comments from a previous grader on expected style for homeworks.
Understand that there will be a number of moderately complicated programs required for homework in this class. You may work in either C or Fortran. I recommend Fortran 90 due to the more compact programming constructs and larger number of canned subroutines available to you. If you are not careful, programming bugs may eat up your entire life for the spring semester. I recommend two things to make your life easier. First use either Visual C++ or Intel Visual Fortran within MicroSoft Visual Studio .Net. Debugging features in this environment are very powerful. All of this software is available at ITS computer labs. Second learn when to call for help. I expect you to produce your own program to solve each problem. However, I will provide assistance when your code is not producing correct results, and I will provide results for verifying your program.
If you want a free Fortran 95 compiler for your
personal computer try the Salford
Personal Edition for Windows, or the Intel
non-commercial release for Linux. A more general option is
the G95 project.
Consider using G95 in combination with the free integrated
development environment for Fortran called Photran. The other
free Fortran call gFortran
has had a rocky history, but has matured and also works with Photran. It's primary advantage is that the developers have
spent more time worrying about functionality when working with a
dynamic debugger. If you are going to be doing any significant
amount of programming in any language, and you don't know what a
dynamic debugger is, it's time to learn. Expert use of a good
dynamic debugger will radically increase your productivity. At
the moment in my opinion, the best dynamic debugging environment is
MicroSoft Visual Studio .Net. The Salford Compiler has a
moderately good native debugger, and will integrate with Visual
Studio. As mentioned above Intel Visual Fortran for Windows also
Visual Studio, and a student license is not too expensive. Look
specifically at the Student rather than Academic license with Intel,
but read the fine print. You will need to buy a licence for
MicroSoft Visual Studio .Net separately from the University