FORTRAN (and Python!)

[Konrad Hinsen]

Phil Austin <phil at geog.ubc.ca> writes:

> 2) I'm hard pressed to think of a reason why working scientists who
>    solve numerical problems every day shouldn't be steered towards
>    Fortran/Python, at least until a C++ compiler vendor comes up with

I know of exactly one (potential) reason: portability. I have never
tried it myself, so I'd like to hear from people who did. Is it
possible, with standard tools (i.e. standard Fortran and compilers,
Python, PyFort) to write extension modules in Fortran 90 in such a way
that they can be compiled and installed as shared libraries on any
Unix platform by someone who knows nothing about either Fortran or C?
And of course without requiring the original author of the module
to know details of all possible Fortran compilers.
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