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by FormerLabFred13 hours ago |
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upvoteby embedding-shape13 hours ago|
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> The world is better with a Fortran-based social network client in it

If you don't mind me asking, why is the world better with more Fortran-based software?

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upvoteby FormerLabFred13 hours ago|
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Our modern languages are built on it, and it’s incredibly fast,

so it deserves to be kept alive. We owe a great deal to the people who wrote it in the 1950s I guess

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upvoteby embedding-shape12 hours ago|
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> Our modern languages are built on it

It's part of the lineage, yeah, probably started with Algol though? Fast I guess is always nice, but I'm not sure that's enough to keep it alive solely for that, at least to me.

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upvoteby mathieudombrock4 hours ago|
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I think the best answer you're really going to get here is that it's cool and fun to learn and use old languages.
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upvoteby embedding-shape1 hours ago|
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I'd agree with all of those reasons! I do so myself as well, was just specifically curious about the "The world is better with a Fortran-based social network client in it" part. Don't get me wrong, I've spent too many nights learning "dead" languages too, but never with the idea that the world would be better if I published more code in these dead languages, it's just for my own gratification and learnings.
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upvoteby mountainriver12 hours ago|
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This thread makes me happy
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upvoteby hedora10 hours ago|
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I came here to suggest COBOL as a better fit, then saw your comment a few levels up in this thread.

Out of curiosity, does your implementation use CODASYL?

(For people that don't pay much attention to historical software systems, most CODASYL implementations were similar to JSON document databases, so going that way isn't as crazy as it sounds.)

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upvoteby FormerLabFred2 hours ago|
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Great comment! Thanks!

No CODASYL, the JSON parser is hand-rolled Fortran with a depth-tracking key scanner

CODASYL not a crazy direction for the feed composer

Got more depth to explore here, still early :)

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upvoteby Melatonic3 hours ago|
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How do COBOL and Fortran compare for something like this ?
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upvoteby FormerLabFred2 hours ago|
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COBOL is more painful, Fortran better.

Good you raised the topic, can write a blog post on it when we ship Cobolsky. Will be a proof of concept repo. Fortransky is the one

(If AT Proto did fixed-width records instead of JSON, COBOL would be formidable)

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