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A comment on Is Fortran better than Python for teaching basics of numerical linear algebra?. Parent comment

Re:Is Fortran better than Python for teaching basics of nume... by jcranmer on Tuesday September 23, 2025 @05:40PM (#45353106)
A large share of the illegibility of Fortran code is actually just the aversion of numerics code to having meaningful variable names.
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Re:Is Fortran better than Python for teaching basics of nume... by atrettel on Tuesday September 23, 2025 @09:29PM (#45355158)
I second this. When I worked on some older Fortran codes, I had to keep a cheat sheet for the variable names and what they meant or controlled. It definitely made the code hard to read.
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Re:Is Fortran better than Python for teaching basics of nume... by noobermin on Wednesday September 24, 2025 @05:13AM (#45357959)
Yeah, this isn't the case for any codes written since may be the 00s or even the late 90s, although I admit I haven't worked on a code that old recently.
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Re:Is Fortran better than Python for teaching basics of nume... by pjmlp on Wednesday September 24, 2025 @05:59AM (#45358236)
Something that also happens in languages like C and Go, while C has the same reason as Fortran, given the limitations of their early compilers, Go has no reason for single letter receivers.
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