forrad

adv : at or to or toward the front; "he faced forward"; "step

forward"; "she practiced sewing backward as well as

frontward on her new sewing machine"; (`forrad' and

`forrard' are dialectal variations) [syn: {forward}, {forwards},

{frontward}, {frontwards}, {forrard}] [ant: {back}]

Fortran

(Formula Translation) The first and, for a long

time, the most widely used programming language for numerical

and scientific applications. The original versions lacked

{recursive} procedures and {block structure} and had a

line-oriented {syntax} in which certain columns had special

significance.

There have been a great many versions.

The name is often written "FORTRAN", harking back to the days

before computers were taught about lower case, but {ANSI}

decreed (circa. 1985 via the ANSI {FORTRAN} Technical

Committee {TC} that it should be "Fortran".

See also: {Fortrash}.

[Was {Fortran I} the first version?]

(2000-07-07)