Ask HN: Jobs for young/old FORTRAN programmers?
8 comments
I got my professional start as FORTRAN programmer for process control systems and simulations for Petrochemical, Oil & Gas, Food & Beverage, and Nuclear industry. /u/kjs3 answer provides direction on where to look for FORTRAN opportunities.
I believe environmental science, fluid dynamics, aerospace, nuclear, and geology still uses a lot of FORTRAN based back-end. Most of FORTRAN is tough to replace as, other than C, I haven't seen any language that can provide the scientific/mathematical computing libraries, for example numerical methods, that FORTRAN has.
Instead of thinking of refactoring legacy FORTRAN code, think of putting a new user/web interface in front of FORTRAN. There may be better opportunities on updating the 'user interaction' with FORTRAN based systems specially in simulations arena.
I don't think the FORTRAN comp will be anywhere close to COBOL comp. With FORTRAN, you are dealing with typically misson-critical applications rather than COBOL based business applications so there is much higher resistance and lower opportunity to show direct revenue/profit impact. A few times, I have been approached by vendors who have been trying to replace the FORTRAN based systems, I worked on, with their C based products. These vendors typically have balked on my contract rate expectations, that I get doing big data analytics.
Why not ask you dad for the FORTRAN based systems he used and talk to his industry connections for getting the feel for the demand. Your dad most probably will get lot more kick out of you trying to understand what he did. When I was working on a facility very similar to the one my dad used to work, he really got the kick out of understanding how things are changing.
I believe environmental science, fluid dynamics, aerospace, nuclear, and geology still uses a lot of FORTRAN based back-end. Most of FORTRAN is tough to replace as, other than C, I haven't seen any language that can provide the scientific/mathematical computing libraries, for example numerical methods, that FORTRAN has.
Instead of thinking of refactoring legacy FORTRAN code, think of putting a new user/web interface in front of FORTRAN. There may be better opportunities on updating the 'user interaction' with FORTRAN based systems specially in simulations arena.
I don't think the FORTRAN comp will be anywhere close to COBOL comp. With FORTRAN, you are dealing with typically misson-critical applications rather than COBOL based business applications so there is much higher resistance and lower opportunity to show direct revenue/profit impact. A few times, I have been approached by vendors who have been trying to replace the FORTRAN based systems, I worked on, with their C based products. These vendors typically have balked on my contract rate expectations, that I get doing big data analytics.
Why not ask you dad for the FORTRAN based systems he used and talk to his industry connections for getting the feel for the demand. Your dad most probably will get lot more kick out of you trying to understand what he did. When I was working on a facility very similar to the one my dad used to work, he really got the kick out of understanding how things are changing.
I used to do watershed modelling with Fortran back in the late 90s. There's definitely a lot of legacy Fortran software still in use, but more in research and science oriented fields. I think there are still interesting opportunities in which you interface modern web UIs with a legacy Fortran implementations that do some cool scientific modelling.
You are unlikely to make as good money as Cobol programmers, though.
You are unlikely to make as good money as Cobol programmers, though.
My father worked as a hydrologist doing very similar work!
It's funny, when I first heard him tell me he used Fortran, I immediately thought "typical slow-to-change state government!" etc etc. Only subsequently did I realize how prevalent (and useful) the language is for scientific research, advanced computing, engineering, and a bunch of other services - basically the exact purposes he was using it for.
Nice to see some longevity after learning so many things that seem more fad-ish!
It's funny, when I first heard him tell me he used Fortran, I immediately thought "typical slow-to-change state government!" etc etc. Only subsequently did I realize how prevalent (and useful) the language is for scientific research, advanced computing, engineering, and a bunch of other services - basically the exact purposes he was using it for.
Nice to see some longevity after learning so many things that seem more fad-ish!
I have nothing constructive to say, but ... what a cool question :)
There's a lot of old FORTRAN code out there. Off the top of my head I'd look for:
- Places using traditional supercomputers (Cray, NEC SX, Fujitsu) - Geophysical and petrochemical industries - Defense industries - Academic institutions in hard science (physics, mathematics)
Good luck to you guys.
- Places using traditional supercomputers (Cray, NEC SX, Fujitsu) - Geophysical and petrochemical industries - Defense industries - Academic institutions in hard science (physics, mathematics)
Good luck to you guys.
FORTRAN is still heavily used in high energy physics, although it's not a field known for being lucrative.
Computational chemistry (mostly pharma/biotech companies) employs a lot of FORTRAN codes (quantum mechanics, molecular dynamics, monte carlo, etc.). The 2-3 codes I've spent time understanding are examples of text book bad programming practices though (not to say there aren't some good ones). Also if you don't mind your input files being 80-column punch card formats.
There's plenty of engineering software that's written in Fortran (plenty of F77 code still around and in use too).
Now I'm looking to spend more time with him, generally, and thought it'd be fun to go through some of his old materials/documentation and learn a little bit of the language myself. I figure it'd be a neat way for me to get more insight into his former day-to-day work than I ever did growing up (just recently started coding) while getting some exposure to CS history in the process.
My question: Is there any sort of market for FORTRAN programmers anymore? I've heard of COBOL programmers fetching pretty good prices because so many legacy applications depend on it and there's a dearth of new talent - does a similar situation exist for FORTRAN?
If not, that's OK, just already dreaming about a family business refactoring legacy code! "LastName & Sons Software Development" has a nice ring to it ;)