[pinerd3]

This is a reasonable argument, but it implies that FORTRAN is in fact not a good language for beginners; almost all beginners care about IO / text processing, and almost none care about linear algebra. (Especially if one is talking about beginners-in-general, as opposed to engineering types who are learning to use programming as a tool.)

[romwell]

Sure, but that still means FORTRAN is an easy language if your intro to programming isn't centered around text processing.

And for many people, it isn't/hasn't been/doesn't have to be.

That's the author's take as well:

>The idea of introductory languages is not necessarily that they are suited to commercial endeavours, but rather that they are (i) easy to implement algorithm in, (ii) readable, and (iii) do not contain things that will confuse and bewilder.

[noobermin]

Have you ever thought it was because the tutorials you read were geared towards a type of programmer that had different goals from a computational programmer?