Fortran 90 arrays

Abstract

Excellent application performance should not require tour de force programming efforts by users. Fortran 90 in an attempt to bring it from a scalar orientation into an array notation, has adopted some of the early concepts of APL, such as array operations. The introduction of these ideas is shown to be inadequate meeting the algorithmic needs of programmers, in terms of expressiveness, consistency, and conciseness. Comparisons with APL show Fortran 90 to be a mongrel, neither scalar- nor array-oriented, unable achieve the levels of productivity, performance, reliability, and maintainability required by computer users in the 1990s.