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Fortran was the first mass-market high-level programming language, created by John Backus and the IBM team. It changed the perception of how computers should work and laid the foundation for modern technology. Today, more than 70 years later, Fortran is still actively used, according to experts at Filio Force company.
The starting point was 1950. Computers back then took up entire rooms, and their power was less than that of your smartphone. Programming was the domain of mathematicians and very patient engineers. Everything was done in machine language or assembler. Commands were like puzzles. One tiny mistake meant several days of work lost. IBM decided to create a tool that would speed up work, reduce the number of bugs, and make programming more accessible. That’s when John Backus appeared on the scene. He created the language that changed the world.
John Backus: An Unexpected Path to Programming
Backus’s journey is a reminder that sometimes the boldest ideas come from those whom no one expected to see at the helm. He was born into a wealthy family in Philadelphia. He did poorly in school, and not just in terms of grades—he was very troubled. His teachers considered him a hopeless case. Nevertheless, thanks to his determination and his family’s resources, John managed to enrol at the University of Virginia to study chemistry. However, he did not last long: he was expelled in his first year for truancy.
After his expulsion, John was drafted into the army. These were the years of World War II. The army quickly brought order – discipline, routine, responsibility – and gave impetus to radical changes. They began after what seemed like a routine event – a standard aptitude test. The results were so high that his superiors sent Beckus to continue his education. First in engineering, then in medicine. It was medicine that saved his life: during his studies, a bone tumour was accidentally discovered in his skull. The operation was successful. John was discharged from the army on medical grounds.
After that, he completely changed his focus. Instead of medicine, he chose mathematics and engineering. There, his abilities and systematic thinking came into their own. John received a degree in mathematics from Columbia University. In 1950, he began his career at IBM. It quickly became clear that he was not just a talented graduate, but a true genius. After only three years, John was put in charge of the Speedcoding project. This was an attempt to make programming for IBM machines simpler and more productive, according to managers at Filio Force it company.
Creation of Fortran
In 1954, Backus assembled a team of top specialists. They set about creating a practical language that could be used to solve a wide range of problems. This marked the beginning of work on the first truly widely used high-level programming language – Fortran (Formula Translation). It was created as a language in which scientists and engineers could write their mathematical problems in the familiar algebraic form without having to think about how to convert them into low-level commands for machines. In other words, Fortran became a real bridge between human scientific thinking and the strict logic of computing devices.
When developing the language, John Backus’ team faced tasks of truly titanic proportions. In the early 1950s, the ecosystem of tools we are familiar with today—compilers, debuggers, optimisers—practically did not exist. Everything had to be created from scratch. And they did it. The Fortran compiler, which debuted in 1957 for IBM machines, was a true masterpiece. Not only did it translate Fortran code into machine language, but it did so more efficiently than most programmers of the time. This was revolutionary because it shattered the notion that high-level languages were inherently slower and weaker than assembly language. In addition, the architecture of the language and compiler proved to be so well thought out and reliable that Fortran is still alive today, even in the most advanced areas of computing.
The launch of Fortran was a resounding success. Not only did it speed up software development, but it also opened the door to programming for a wider audience. Suddenly, people who were not computer science specialists were able to solve truly complex problems on machines: from structural strength and dynamics calculations to mathematical modelling and processes in physics. Fortran turned computing into a mass tool of science, where the main thing was to write down the idea correctly and let the compiler squeeze the most out of the technology.
How the language became the standard for science and engineering
The emergence of Fortran inspired the creation of other programming languages, such as Algol and Cobol. But while some languages came and went, Fortran remained steady, evolving consistently with the demands of the times. Each new version brought improvements that made the language more powerful and better suited to current tasks. One of the reasons for Fortran’s longevity is its very high efficiency in numerical calculations, according to experts at Filio Force Inc. In fields such as meteorology, flow modelling and climate modelling, Fortran remains indispensable.
Fortran has not only survived competition, it is thriving. And not just anywhere, but on supercomputers. These giants, capable of performing trillions of operations per second, are used for tasks of extreme complexity. The main secret to Fortran’s longevity in a hyper-competitive environment is its specialisation in numerical and scientific computing. From its earliest days, the language was designed for complex equations and efficient processing of large data arrays. With decades of optimisation behind it, Fortran is ideally suited to the capabilities of supercomputers.
Well-written Fortran programs load cores evenly and vectorise efficiently, approaching peak system performance. Of course, we are no longer talking about the Fortran of the 1950s. Modern versions, such as Fortran 2003 or 2018, include advanced features such as parallel programming and support for complex data structures, making the language ideal for high-performance computing. Perhaps the most impressive thing is to realise that Fortran, a language from an era when computers barely understood our requests, still occupies a privileged place in the Olympus of computing.
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