Fortran Fame

I was standing on the NAG booth here at SC10 yesterday, muttering to myself about the difficulty of maintaining an internet connection in the exhibition hall. The organisers claim that there's more bandwidth available at SC10 than is used by any but the five largest countries in the world - I think they're exaggerating because I can never get any of it.

Anyway, along came a dapper fellow wearing a baseball cap who started a converstaion about the way standards were being implemented in the NAG Fortran compiler. I asked whether he was interested in using Fortran. "Well, I used to be", he said. Belatedly I looked down at his name badge. It turned out to be Tom Lahey, founding father of the Lahey Fortran compiler. What could I do but shake his hand and bow.