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| 1 | +<!-- |
| 2 | +Fortran has been traditionally developed by compiler vendors, |
| 3 | +and later also by the standards committee. |
| 4 | +It was a mainstream language when computing was a niche, |
| 5 | +and became a niche language when computing turned mainstream. |
| 6 | +It is the oldest high-level language still in use today, |
| 7 | +and thus originates in the pre-internet era. |
| 8 | +--> |
| 9 | + |
| 10 | +<section> |
| 11 | + |
1 | 12 | ### Why do we need an online Fortran community?
|
| 13 | +</section> |
| 14 | + |
| 15 | +<section> |
| 16 | + |
| 17 | +### Developed by vendors and committees |
| 18 | + |
| 19 | +* Traditionally, Fortran has been developed by compiler |
| 20 | +vendors and standards committees |
| 21 | +* Vendors follow the buck (customers) |
| 22 | +* Committees follow the vendors |
| 23 | + |
| 24 | +=> Individual developers left behind |
| 25 | +</section> |
| 26 | + |
| 27 | +<section> |
| 28 | + |
| 29 | +### A niche language |
| 30 | + |
| 31 | +* Fortran was mainstream when computing was niche |
| 32 | +* Niche when computing turned mainstream |
| 33 | + |
| 34 | +=> Difficult to find other developers and learning resources |
| 35 | +</section> |
| 36 | + |
| 37 | + |
| 38 | +<section> |
| 39 | + |
| 40 | +#### Originated in the pre-internet era |
| 41 | + |
| 42 | +* Before email, websites, or version control |
| 43 | +* GitHub? Forget about it! |
| 44 | + |
| 45 | +=> Scarce open source library ecosystem |
| 46 | +</section> |
| 47 | + |
| 48 | +<section> |
| 49 | + |
| 50 | +#### Where we are now |
| 51 | + |
| 52 | +* No connected and organized community of developers |
| 53 | +* No small-to-medium sized projects started in Fortran |
| 54 | +* Many applications + few libraries = little code reuse |
| 55 | +* New software projects not started in Fortran |
| 56 | +despite it being optimal for the task at hand |
| 57 | +</section> |
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