Grant, if we edited Fortran, I assume that you'd put a column thing in there.
FORTRAN was the language of choice for the same reason that three-legged races are popular.
Greenspun's Tenth Rule of Programming: any sufficiently complicated C or Fortran program contains an ad hoc informally-specified bug-ridden slow implementation of half of Common Lisp.
FORTRAN, the infantile disorder, by now nearly 20 years old, is hopelessly inadequate for whatever computer application you have in mind today: it is now too clumsy, too risky, and too expensive to use.
In the good old days physicists repeated each other's experiments, just to be sure. Today they stick to FORTRAN, so that they can share each other's programs, bugs included.
Anyone could learn Lisp in one day, except that if they already knew Fortran, it would take three days.
FORTRAN is not a flower but a weed - it is hardy, occasionally blooms, and grows in every computer.
You can measure a programmer's perspective by noting his attitude on the continuing vitality of FORTRAN.
