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From: "Nasser M. Abbasi" <nma@12000.org>
Newsgroups: comp.lang.ada
Subject: The answer to "Can Ada replace FORTRAN for numerical computation?
Date: Sun, 21 Jul 2019 23:38:15 -0500
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Xref: reader01.eternal-september.org comp.lang.ada:56911
Date: 2019-07-21T23:38:15-05:00
List-Id: <comp.lang.ada>

In 1980 there was a paper titled "Can Ada replace FORTRAN for numerical computation?"

ACM SIGPLAN Notices
Volume 16, Number 12, December, 1981


https://dl.acm.org/citation.cfm?id=954264

"
In July 1980, the proposed final form of the Ada programming
language was released by the U.S. Department of Defense [1]. Even
though Ada was not designed specifically for general numeric
scientific computation, nevertheless the question arises to whether
it is appropriate for this purpose. This question can best
be answered by consideration of the following question: Is Ada
a suitable replacement for the programming language FORTRAN? This
paper discusses those constructs of Ada which are pertinent to the
matter and are considered defective. It is noted that the array defects
are exceptionally critical, not providing needed capabilities
that exist in FORTRAN and have been extensively used for
  a quarter century."

I can't find free version of the paper, any one knows of one? but
there was more discussion on it here:

https://archive.org/stream/DTIC_ADA139224/DTIC_ADA139224_djvu.txt

(just search for string "can ada")

_But_ to answer the question in the title of the paper, and
after FORTY years, it is clear now that the answer is a
resounding NO.

Too bad, because Ada could have been best language for numerical
computation due to its strong typing. But its lack of support
for many things related to linear algebra and such, as discussed
in the above, Ada could not replace Fortran.

--Nasser