Take NASTRAN-95, for example. It has good documentation in the form of manuals, books, and papers. If you have the mechanical background, you should be able to understand the docs explaining the implementation approach, and then you should be able to understand the code. It doesn't matter that there are no comments anywhere. Aside from some cosmetic differences, it looks pretty much like what you'd write today with MATLAB. It's perfectly readable and accessible by the target audience.
I don't think anyone would say that all code should be accessible to everyone.
The question is, do people who use [1] and [2] use only FORTRAN for everything, even common programming tasks that any competent person could tackle? And when they have something new to write, do they continue with FORTRAN because it's what they're used to?
I just meant to say that numerical code is not actually write-only.
Fortran is like a DSL. You just write the numerical solver part with it. Everything else is just regular code.
Just like anything else, the decision comes down to whether the ecosystem has the right tools for the job. It's a deliberate decision. It's not like people are relegated to it because they don't know anything else.
Comments
I think there's a common misconception that numerical codes should be accessible without documentation, and without a background in the subject.
https://github.com/nasa/NASTRAN-95
Take NASTRAN-95, for example. It has good documentation in the form of manuals, books, and papers. If you have the mechanical background, you should be able to understand the docs explaining the implementation approach, and then you should be able to understand the code. It doesn't matter that there are no comments anywhere. Aside from some cosmetic differences, it looks pretty much like what you'd write today with MATLAB. It's perfectly readable and accessible by the target audience.
I don't think anyone would say that all code should be accessible to everyone.
The question is, do people who use [1] and [2] use only FORTRAN for everything, even common programming tasks that any competent person could tackle? And when they have something new to write, do they continue with FORTRAN because it's what they're used to?
I just meant to say that numerical code is not actually write-only.
Fortran is like a DSL. You just write the numerical solver part with it. Everything else is just regular code.
Just like anything else, the decision comes down to whether the ecosystem has the right tools for the job. It's a deliberate decision. It's not like people are relegated to it because they don't know anything else.