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Morton Thiokol told NASA not to launch the Challenger that day. NASA overruled them because President Reagan was visiting.
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Morton Thiokol ultimately approved the launch, against engineers recommendations.
"the debugger doesn't tell me anything because this code compiles just fine" - random QA comment
"Facebook is where you tell lies to your friends. Twitter is where you tell the truth to strangers." - chriselst
"I don't drink any more... then again, I don't drink any less." - Mike Mullikins uncle
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Morton Thiokol only approved the launch after NASA threatened to blacklist them for future contracts.
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Agreed, it's a tough spot for them, nevertheless they bowed to the pressure.
"the debugger doesn't tell me anything because this code compiles just fine" - random QA comment
"Facebook is where you tell lies to your friends. Twitter is where you tell the truth to strangers." - chriselst
"I don't drink any more... then again, I don't drink any less." - Mike Mullikins uncle
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obermd wrote: They lost this when they removed engineers from the C-Suite.
Entirely correct. Of the three major defense companies I worked for in the past, none still exist. The end was clear once the MBAs and other unqualified suits took over management from the engineers who successfully ran the companies for decades.
Will Rogers never met me.
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Perhaps, for the first time in this millennium, FORTRAN comes in the Top 10 TIOBE Index - TIOBE [^]
As a side note, my 'mother-tongue' is FORTRAN, being the first computer language i learnt in 1987.
Hope this news isn't a repeat.
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The joy of fixed column coding. 
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Not to forget the now infamous GOTO, which was indeed a saviour in those days.
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Amarnath S wrote: GOTO, which was indeed a saviour in those days
Not in 1987! Maybe it was true in 1967, although we had had Algol since 1960 (or 1958 for early blomers).
In 1968, we had the first major revision of Algol. Pascal arrived in 1970, Modula in 1975, C++ in 1985.
Dijkstra's "Go to statement considered harmful" is dated 1968.
If you considered GOTO 'a saviour' in 1987, you were either badly uninformed or extremely slow in adopting modern programming trends.
Religious freedom is the freedom to say that two plus two make five.
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You will pry my gotos from my cold dead hands.
finite automata, FTW
Check out my IoT graphics library here:
https://honeythecodewitch.com/gfx
And my IoT UI/User Experience library here:
https://honeythecodewitch.com/uix
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In 1987, I was in my pre-final year of Mechanical Engineering degree. Computers were new, having been introduced in India in early 80's, and programming was entirely new to me. Getting hands onto a computer was indeed rare, and somehow I got hands on a VAX VMS mainframe system. Compiling, linking, running - were all new. I had just learnt that there's something called as a 'file' - because the only files known were office files. And we were writing 'files' to implement the Newton Raphson method, the Regula Falsi method, etc.
Against this backdrop, GOTO was indeed a saviour, because what it did was indeed magic. And all my files were not more than 70 or 80 lines long, as it was college-level code.
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Nothing wrong with that Richard 
In a closed society where everybody's guilty, the only crime is getting caught. In a world of thieves, the only final sin is stupidity. - Hunter S Thompson - RIP
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Old timers Fortran programmers are retiring and need replacements.
CI/CD = Continuous Impediment/Continuous Despair
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Maybe they can become trainers, coaches. Income after retirement.
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The problem with that is, whoever of the old gurus said (in the 1970s): 'I don't know what languages will look like in year 2000, but they will be called Fortran!'
Fortran 2023 has very little to do with the Fortran I learned in my studies in 1978-83. (Fortran was limited to the first two years.) I do not recognize today's Fortran as anything even vaguely resembling what I learned back then. If I were to teach it, I would first have to learn it as a new language.
Is GOTO at all a relevant statement in modern Fortran?
Religious freedom is the freedom to say that two plus two make five.
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Agree.
As I remember, FORTRAN 90, which I came across in the late 90's had the concept of Pointers. Today's FORTRAN may even have the concept of Classes. And the GOTO may be like "Hey GOTO, GO AWAY FOREVER".
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Yes, it's good to know  .. and the comment on their page adds some reasonable explanation:
"... Less than half a year ago, the new ISO Fortran 2023 definition was published. ... Fortran appears to be fast, having native mathematical computation support, mature, and free of charge. Silently, slowly but surely, Fortran gains ground. It is surprising but undeniable. ..."
So, it's time to find my Fortran FFT code which I used back then ...
modified 11hrs 10mins ago.
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From what I've heard, its the NAG, the UK-based Numerical Algorithms Group, which has mainly been responsible for the continued usage of Fortran.
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I would guess it has to do with supercomputers in large part. Fortran has been used with them for decades and still is. Nvidia has support for CUDA in Fortran and that makes it possible to adapt code to run on GPUs which almost every modern supercomputer has these days.
"They have a consciousness, they have a life, they have a soul! Damn you! Let the rabbits wear glasses! Save our brothers! Can I get an amen?"
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Quote: I would guess it has to do with supercomputers in large part.
That's possible indeed ... Perhaps surprisingly, there is a lot of up-to-date information, for example Fortran - Wikipedia, it makes me also think about possible use in LLM training ...
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'mother tongue' for me as well.
"A little time, a little trouble, your better day"
Badfinger
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When I learned C I forgot Fortran, and was happy!
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I had a class in C and FORTRAN in 87/88. I already knew FORTRAN, and I took it mostly for the C.
The teacher tortured us by assigning programs to be solved in the language least suited to solve the problem.
Write some numerical algorithm in C( not FORTRAN ).
Write some parsing and word counting code in FORTRAN(not C)
Kind of proved the point that you can solve any problem with any language.
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Can we compare this with filling a round hole with a square peg? Only that the hole and peg are made of somewhat flexible rubbery material.
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... headed
Quote: Receive packages at your convenience
How will they know when I'm in there?
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