Information Technology Reference
In-Depth Information
FORTRAN was appealing to scientists and other academics for a
number of reasons. First of all, it was designed and developed by one of
their own. Backus spoke their language, published in their journals, and
shared their disdain for coders and other “technicians.” Second,
FORTRAN was designed specifi cally to solve the kinds of problems that
interested academics. Its use of algebraic expressions greatly simplifi ed
the process of defi ning mathematical problems in machine-readable
syntax. Finally, and perhaps most signifi cantly, FORTRAN provided
them more direct access to the computer. Its introduction “caused a
partial revolution in the way in which computer installations were run
because it became not only possible but quite practical to have engineers,
scientists, and other people actually programming their own problems
without the intermediary of a professional programmer.”
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The use of
FORTRAN actually became the centerpiece of an ongoing debate about
“open” versus “closed” programming “shops.” The closed shops allowed
only professional programmers to have access to the computers; open
shops made these machines directly available to their users.
The association of FORTRAN with scientifi c computing was a self-
replicating phenomenon. Academics preferred FORTRAN to other lan-
guages because they believed it allowed them to do their work more
effectively and they therefore made FORTRAN the foundation of their
computing curricula. Students learned the language in university courses
and were thus more effective at getting their work done in FORTRAN.
A positive feedback loop was established between FORTRAN and aca-
demia. A survey in 1973 of more than thirty-fi ve thousand students
taking college-level computing courses revealed that 70 percent were
learning to program using FORTRAN. The next most widely used alter-
native, BASIC, was used by only 13 percent, and less than 3 percent were
exposed to business-oriented languages such as COBOL.
28
Throughout
the 1960s and 1970s, FORTRAN was clearly the dominant language of
scientifi c computation.
COBOL
On April 8, 1959, a group of computer manufacturers, users, and aca-
demics met at the University of Pennsylvania's Computing Center to
discuss a proposal to develop “the specifi cations for a common business
language [CBL] for automatic digital computers.”
29
The goal was to
develop a programming language specifi cally aimed at the needs of the
business data processing community. This new language would rely on
