Fortran Wiki
Fortran History

Introduction

Fortran has a long history. Many other programming languages have come and gone over the life of Fortran. Part of this success is that Fortran has avoided the temptation of implementing new programming concepts. Unfortunately, the resistance to change has also been responsible for Fortran’s diminishing user base over the last 20 years. Fortran 2003 and 2008 fix the most glaring deficiencies, such as standardized C interoperability and better string support. But is it too late to prevent Fortran’s demise?

Links

• The Seven Ages of Fortran - A review by Michael Metcalf written in 2011.
• A brief Fortran History - general Fortran history
• The Fortran Saga - PDF of Brian Meek’s well-known document on the politics of Fortran Standards development.
• Fortran90 history - Discusses the history of the Fortran90 revision.
• FORTRAN: The Pioneering Programming Language - an IBM article on the history of Fortran.
• Early Fortran documents at the Computer History Museum
• FORTRAN: A Historical View - by John J. G. Savard. Covers the original FORTRAN through Fortran 2003.