Date: Mon, 15 Sep 1997 22:15:40 -0600 (MDT) From: Wes Peters <softweyr@xmission.com> To: The Classiest Man Alive <ksmm@cybercom.net> Cc: chat@freebsd.org Subject: language choices on FreeBSD Message-ID: <199709160415.WAA00410@obie.softweyr.ml.org> In-Reply-To: <3.0.3.32.19970914222521.009dbad0@cybercom.net> References: <Your message of "Sun, 14 Sep 1997 15:48:36 CDT." <199709142048.PAA02118@argus.tfs.net> <398.874278327@time.cdrom.com> <3.0.3.32.19970914222521.009dbad0@cybercom.net>
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The Classiest Man Alive writes:
> Is there anybody out there using FreeBSD as a platform for FORTRAN? What
> languages are people programming in out there on FreeBSD? (Just out of
> curiosity.)
Well, not currently, but I *did* once port a Fortran program to 386BSD.
Back at Weber State, they had once acquired a satellite tracking program
from NORAD; as my senior project I modified it to track the University's
satellite NUSAT-1 and to run on the Harris 100 minicomputer owned by the
electronics department.
A number of years later, while fooling around with some friends at
Weber, Terry Lambert showed my a system they had running 386BSD. I
browbeat him into giving me an account on it so I could login over the
network; this started my introduction to 386BSD (I was an 'anonymous'
user starting at about 0.2 patchkit), then NetBSD, and finally FreeBSD.
When I discovered f2c, I dug up my old satellite tracking program source
code from my System V/AT at home and ported it again, called a friend
who was working on Webersat and got the orbit info for NUSAT-2. That
night, I went into the mountains with my binoculars, and sure enough,
there was NUSAT-2 right on schedule.
Talk about portability: the original ran on S/360, then Harris H/100,
VAX/VMS somewhere along the way, SVR2, and finally 4.3 BSD. Fortran is
dead, but it's still kicking. I've done object-oriented graphics
programs in Fortran, using Oracle as an object data store. A reasonably
good Fortran compiler with strong links to the C/C++ compiler is an
asset for any UNIX system, even today.
--
"Where am I, and what am I doing in this handbasket?"
Wes Peters Softweyr LLC
http://www.xmission.com/~softweyr softweyr@xmission.com
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