AFAIU, Fortran acquired most of its bad reputation in the 60s and 70s. I think it was much more widespread than it is today. Then, as time went on, Fortran moved to the niche it was intended for originally (scientific computation) and was replaced by other languages for general purpose programming. Fortran continued to evolve, but few people got to see that, unless they cared to look. The rest of the world remembered the FORTRAN of old.