As in all else, Orwell is correct.
Fortran 90 and successors are actually reasonable languages. Fortran 77 and earlier didn't even have dynamic allocation. One of my more interesting projects was converting a multi-hundred-thousand-line Fortran 77 program to Fortran 90. Because allocation was static, (1) There were many places in the program where a given array could be first filled; and (2) It made use of "work arrays", which were utility arrays that were equivalenced (Fortran programmers know that word!) to different arrays of different types, depending the current input. Even when a single array was used for a single purpose throughout the code, depending upon the work flow, it might be first filled in any of a number of places. So it was a challenge to know when and how to allocate it. Fortunately, I already knew the program pretty well, but I have to say that by the end, I knew it much better. The program is still widely respected and in general academic and commercial use, and his been greatly advanced since I worked on it in the '90s.
Biting the hand that feeds IT
