Editing Computer program (section)

====Fortran====
[[FORTRAN]] (1958) was unveiled as "The IBM Mathematical FORmula TRANslating system". It was designed for scientific calculations, without [[String (computer science)|string]] handling facilities. Along with [[Declaration (computer programming)|declarations]], [[Expression (computer science)|expressions]], and [[Statement (computer science)|statements]], it supported:
* [[Array data structure|arrays]].
* [[Function (computer programming)#Jump to subroutine|subroutines]].
* [[For loop#1957: FORTRAN|"do" loops]].

It succeeded because:
* programming and debugging costs were below computer running costs.
* it was supported by IBM.
* applications at the time were scientific.<ref name="cpl_3rd-ch2-16">{{cite book
  | last = Wilson
  | first = Leslie B.
  | title = Comparative Programming Languages, Third Edition
  | publisher = Addison-Wesley
  | year = 2001
  | page = 16
  | isbn = 0-201-71012-9
}}</ref>

However, non-IBM vendors also wrote Fortran compilers, but with a syntax that would likely fail IBM's compiler.<ref name="cpl_3rd-ch2-16"/> The [[American National Standards Institute]] (ANSI) developed the first Fortran standard in 1966. In 1978, Fortran 77 became the standard until 1991. Fortran 90 supports:
* [[Record (computer science)|records]].
* [[Pointer (computer programming)|pointers]] to arrays.