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Fastest Way to learn Fortran

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An answer to a question by Fortran on Reddit.


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I learned Fortran during my Physics PhD working with atmospheric transport models. It includes some old style choices, because code from 30 years back still has to work (and does!), but when you use it where it shines (anything with math, including the most complex math), it’s actually not harder than Python.

While I learned it, I wrote two short tutorials (because that’s the most effective way to learn), maybe they can help you:

What’s pretty nice with Fortran is that mathy parts read like Python, but are fast by default. Really fast. Fast as in “you notice it, when you exceed the L2 cache of your CPU”.

Also a fun little example that shows that Fortran already enables stuff Java and Javascript programmers dream of:

Have fun learning your namesake, Fortran!

Besides my own stuff, have a look at fortran-lang.org/learn/. For an overview, learnxinyminutes where X=Fortran looks useful.

ArneBab 2024-07-31 Mi 00:00 - Impressum - GPLv3 or later (code), cc by-sa (rest)