Experience

This course is a first introduction to programming in Fortran and so we do not assume any programming experience at all so for most users this will be a first introduction to any programming.

This Fortran course will be taught in the Unix environment and you should know how to use a very basic level of Unix. If you have no experience with Unix then you should first take the E-learning Unix course.

Software

We will assume you have access directly to a Unix or linux computer and that you have logged onto the computer and are in that computer environment. We also assume that you have access to Fortran 95 and 77 compilers. Both are freely distributed within Linux.

An easy way to find out if you have these compilers installed is at the command prompt type f77 and if it says ‘no input files’ or something similar then the compiler is installed. If it says ‘command cannot be found’ then it is not installed. Try f77 and then try f95 to check both. Most Unix systems have these compilers as standard and if not contact your system administrator to have them installed.

If you are starting programming in Fortran anew then you should use Fortran 95. If, however, you know that your research involves inheriting a Fortran 77 code then you should learn both.

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