front matter
I was immediately excited to find out that Milan Curcic would be writing a modern Fortran book. Almost weekly, I meet people who express surprise that Fortran remains in use more than 60 years after its creation, so any signs of new life in a language so often written off as dead or dying are cause for celebration. I usually explain that Fortran has its strongest footholds in fields that embraced computing early. I go on to tell them that they almost certainly use the results of Fortran programs daily when checking weather forecasts. What makes Milan’s work intriguing is the extent to which it connects established domains, where Fortran has long held sway, and emerging domains, where Fortran is rare. This book grew out of the unique perspective Milan brings from having been involved in bridging the divides that prevent many disciplines from writing Fortran and prevent most Fortran programmers from exploiting programming paradigms that have come into widespread use in other languages.