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Essential Fortran 90 & 95 is suitable for courses that teach either of the two Fortran subsets, Essential Lahey Fortran 90 or F. It covers the set of common features, with an appendix that describes differences between the two subsets. Several hundred example program files are available in electronic form.
The Fortran subsets:
The most important recent happening in the Fortran world is the appearance of two subsets, Essential Lahey Fortran 90 and F. Either subset is an excellent vehicle for introductory Fortran programming instruction. They have the features that are needed for teaching Computer Science (including data structures, recursion, and dynamic storage) and for applied programming in science and engineering (including complex arithmetic and full array facilities). They enforce safety restrictions that remain optional in the full language, and they provide a way to learn the good parts of modern Fortran without the bad parts. They are also inexpenseve (or free, in many cases). yet the subsets are more than simple teaching tools: they can be used to create well organized, easily maintainable programs that are powerful and efficient.
The author:
Loren Meissner retired recently after 12 years as Professor of Computer Science at the University of San Francisco. Before joining USF, he worked for 23 years in Computer Science and Mathematics research at Lawrence Berkeley Laboratory. He has used Fortran since 1962 and has been active in Fortran standardization since 1975. He has written several computer science textbooks and is the editor of Fortran Forum, a newsletter published by the Assicoation for Computing Machinery.
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