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Probably depends on your definition of old: I'm 64 and in the '70-es when I learned programming, FORTRAN was the first thing I ran into. Could have been worse and turned to COBOL (the dark side of programming)  .
Haven't used it for 3 or 4 decades but I still have a compiler sitting somewhere on my drives. Not too long ago had to re-implement a FORTRAN in C++ so a passing familiarity with the language was useful.
Mircea
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raddevus wrote: it's difficult enough to get "these kids" to learn a language with a compiler, let alone one where they need an AS/400 Mainframe installed in their basement. 
No need for an AS/400 (or for your very own electrical substation ). Silverfrost Fortran FTN95 is free for personal use, and runs on a personal computer.
Freedom is the freedom to say that two plus two make four. If that is granted, all else follows.
-- 6079 Smith W.
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Daniel Pfeffer wrote: No need for an AS/400 (or for your very own electrical substation )
Wasn't that some CP guy a while ago telling that the first version of the DEC Alpha microprocessor required a three phase power supply? Maybe that was a prototype, before the commercial release of the microprocessor. Nevertheless: When we got our first Alpha (and we never got a second...), it was commonly known that if you wanted fried eggs for lunch, you could make them on top of the Alpha.
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Why mess with an AS/400? GO with the machine I used Fortran on - an IBM 370/158 with 2 attached processors. Then you won't need to worry about heating the house, or possibly even the entire block, in the winter! We heated approximately half of a large hospital with one when the boilers had to have emergency repair work done one winter. Of course, you're going to need some very large AC units in the summer.
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Nowadays, we call it "the cloud". If your community has got a few megawatts of electricity to spare, inviting some cloudy provider to establish a cloudy computing center in your community.
(The cloud provider will of course tell you that if he can only get the electric power super cheap, it will generate lots of jobs. What he will not tell you is that 90% of the jobs will come as remote management, far away from your community, and the remaining 10% are highly specialized professionals not available locally; they must come in from the outside. If you are lucky, they will employ a cleaning lady from your local community.)
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I was the other way round: at Uni they taught us COBOL first, then FORTRAN.
The COBOL I tried desperately to forget, and loved FORTRAN until I met Assembler and later C.
"I have no idea what I did, but I'm taking full credit for it." - ThisOldTony
"Common sense is so rare these days, it should be classified as a super power" - Random T-shirt
AntiTwitter: @DalekDave is now a follower!
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I'm 56. The last time I used it professionally was about 25 years ago. It's still used in the scientific computing world, where it has some advantages.
Freedom is the freedom to say that two plus two make four. If that is granted, all else follows.
-- 6079 Smith W.
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Daniel Pfeffer wrote: I'm 56. The last time I used it professionally was about 25 years ago.
You're very young to have used Fortran.
I'm 53, but never had the opportunity to use it, but did learn COBOL...Ugh!
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What I had heard sometime back was that the companies making Finite Element Method (FEM) software (used in Mechanical, Civil, Aerospace applications) heavily use Fortran. The Matrix manipulation libraries used there are highly optimized Fortran routines, which they would not want to rewrite in another language, and work on achieving the same levels of speed.
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Amarnath S wrote: highly optimized Fortran routines, which they would not want to rewrite in another language, and work on achieving the same levels of speed.
That makes sense. Must be a very small market though and interesting that the publisher is targeting people like those devs who might buy this book.
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That fits in with something lurking in the back of my mind about my first computer language:
FORTRAN's Mathematical Libraries are the best. That is, after all, it's purpose in life.
"Back in day" I used it to do simulations and instrument automation (things came with, amongst other things, FORTRAN libraries). When I moved on to 'C', it was because MS QuickC came with a graphics library whilst my FORTRAN relied upon assembly functions I had to make myself.
FEED. REGISTER. RELEASE.
| Ravings en masse^ |
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| "The difference between genius and stupidity is that genius has its limits." - Albert Einstein | | "If you are searching for perfection in others, then you seek disappointment. If you seek perfection in yourself, then you will find failure." - Balboos HaGadol Mar 2010 |
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Ahhh! I used to love QuickC (I still have it installed on this Win10 machine, though I haven't used it for years.
And then came QuickC for Windows, and DOS started to take a back seat in my life. Then the mighty (as in you needed serious arms to carry it) Visual C++ it grew into, which become Visual Studio (and Angels trumpeted it's arrival)
"I have no idea what I did, but I'm taking full credit for it." - ThisOldTony
"Common sense is so rare these days, it should be classified as a super power" - Random T-shirt
AntiTwitter: @DalekDave is now a follower!
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At supercomputer centers, Fortran still has a strong position.
I talked with one guy working at a the local computer center, maybe 3 or 4 years ago; he told that Fortran was their standard language for "everything". This could have changed somewhat today, but a language that has been dominating in some field (like supercomputing) for a couple decennies won't go away overnight.
Then comes the question of which Fortran ... Long ago, when proposals for extensions to become Fortran-77 where discussed, one of the great gurus (Dijkstra?) dryly remarked, "I have no idea about what programming languages will look like in year 2000, but I know for sure that they will be called Fortran". When I stumbled over the Fortran 2003 standard, I immediately saw that he had hit the nail on the head, some 25 years earlier. After 2003, it has become more and more true.
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trønderen wrote: At supercomputer centers, Fortran still has a strong position.
trønderen wrote: (Dijkstra?) dryly remarked, "I have no idea about what programming languages will look like in year 2000, but I know for sure that they will be called Fortran".
Yeah, that is very interesting.
I mean C is never going away either, but I like C so... 
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I believe the nuclear weapons simulation programs at Lawrence Livermore Laboratory are written in FORTRAN.
No, FORTRAN is NOT going away. Ever.
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Days when even a horse loses it's tail? Bull! (7)
[Not my own]
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Not mine either - you win and are up tomorrow: what was the solution?
"I have no idea what I did, but I'm taking full credit for it." - ThisOldTony
"Common sense is so rare these days, it should be classified as a super power" - Random T-shirt
AntiTwitter: @DalekDave is now a follower!
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I finished up the software on the PC side of my father in law's pump monitor (the in laws draw water from a creek) which can remotely track the status of the pump in the pumphouse out in the woods. As they get older stuff like this gets more important. It uses UDP to report the status of the pump - filling or idle (might be another status i have to add i can't remember)
Anyway, unless I'm missing something, the above should be fine and if I am missing something my FIL will let me know!
For this I prefer UDP to TCP for this because having to deal with connections complicates things on both ends. Worst case, if the arduino explodes or something, the PC software will just sit in the "connecting" status forever.
I am waiting on a wifi adapter for my arduino board so I can wire up that end of it and write the microcontroller code. I've got it about half fleshed out but without the wifi widget i can't do the rest.
This has helped with my anhedonia too, so win.
I'm glad my first project will actually be useful to someone. 
Real programmers use butterflies
modified 26-Oct-20 6:36am.
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Have you built a heartbit or something to track the connectivity? UDP is a fire and forget protocol (no handshake) so it might be hours "sending" data to the void without notizing.
M.D.V. 
If something has a solution... Why do we have to worry about?. If it has no solution... For what reason do we have to worry about?
Help me to understand what I'm saying, and I'll explain it better to you
Rating helpful answers is nice, but saying thanks can be even nicer.
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For the purpose of this project, a connectionless datagram protocol is absolutely perfect.
The arduino reports twice a second. The computer on the other end reads once a second. If the computer doesn't get a packet in that second it reverts to the "Connecting" state (any time it's not receiving packets it's "connecting"). As soon as a packet is received the state is set to whatever the packet's value is (one byte, 2 states - 0=Idle and 1=Filling)
Real programmers use butterflies
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I see the makings of an article here
"I didn't mention the bats - he'd see them soon enough" - Hunter S Thompson - RIP
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Perhaps, although it's a project very few people would actually use. I'm considering it.
Real programmers use butterflies
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It's something I've pondered on a few times but I don't have a need / use for - it sounds cool though 
"I didn't mention the bats - he'd see them soon enough" - Hunter S Thompson - RIP
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Seeing an article like that might be what convinces some people to start doing something with an Arduino. You have my vote.
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It's just interesting because it's difficult enough to get "these kids" to learn a language with a compiler, let alone one where they need an AS/400 Mainframe installed in their basement. 
