Although FORTRAN ( formula translation ) is first ever high level programming language and till now no any programming language snatches its niche in this field. What features makes FORTRAN as a soul language ? How it is used in quantum computation ?
Fortran 77 can be considered as suitable language for real time applications
FORTRAN was so primitive and limited when I started programming in 1975 that I had to do so many things in assembler. Then I discovered C and haven't looked back since--at least as far as my own development goes. I've worked with a lot of legacy codes in FORTRAN. Translating them into C doesn't make them any faster, with the efficiency of modern compilers. Dynamic allocation of memory in FORTRAN is such a hassle compared to C. I don't know why anyone would choose to use FORTRAN.
I hope that FORTRAN 77 does not contribute to present research anymore. Newer Versions of Fortran are fine, but I hope that nobody has to use the 77 standard. The code that I am working on was originally written in FORTRAN 77, but at some point it has been translated to Fortran 90 by some tool. I would have been more hesitant to take this job if our code were still FORTRAN 77.
It is not true, though, that no other programming languages try to take its place. As you can find out through many discussions here on RG C++, Python, and sometimes Julia are considered good candidates for scientific computing with comparable performance (sometimes using existing libraries originally written in Fortran).
Modern Fortran is a language with really nice language features. But, some of the syntax is a little bit clunky because of backwards compatibility of source code. Furthermore, Fortran is only suitable for numerical problems. It is not possible to easily write some sort of visualization (though I know that there are GUI toolkits and also OpenGL libraries).
For a long time the only reason to still use Fortran was speed. This argument is now long gone. So, there is no reason left for Fortran other than legacy code.
Every programing language has unique features which makes it most effective in one environment. Fortran is suited to write small and efficient programs mainly suited to solve numerical calculations required in physics and engineering. C is best suited to write large, structured programs which may also require system level commands. Most of the Physics applications involving numerical simulations require only small codes but a lot of iterative computation and only numerical work. Fortran is still best suited for this. Easy to write, easy to debug.
One thing I thought of is that FORTRAN can handle complex numbers with almost no additional effort. It wasn't until C++ came along that you could define objects and redefine operators to work with those objects in order to manipulate complex numbers conveniently. It's really a shame that complex number theory seems to have been eliminated in so many curricula. They are such an important part of understanding mathematics in general and useful as well!
Due to it age, FORTRAN has many mathematical libraries and would say that any numerical algorithm has been already implemented in FORTRAN.
This language is still in use, and many modern and mature Quantum Mechanical softwares are written in it; e.g. GAMESS, SMASH.
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