Fortran H was faster than the fastest punchcard feeder of the time. That bottleneck is unfortunately long gone, without the same magnitude of improvement on the other side. (Physical limits, amazing optimisations, etc.)

Last time I was working with CCE, I was looking at blistering runtime speeds, but six or seven hour compiles. Huge codebase (40mil+ LoC), and the optimisations were great, but not exactly a fantastic dev lifestyle.

Dupe: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48622814

The definition of "passable compiler" in 1992 must have been very different from what it is today; while third year students write interpreters and compilers, nobody would call them useful or passable.

> Now a question: Since we're obviously thousands of times better at producing compilers than we were fifteen years ago, so much so that a single undergraduate can write a passable one in four months, why hasn't IBM invested millions of dollars and hundreds of programmer-years to produce a super FORTRAN I compiler that's thousands of times better than the FORTRAN H compiler?

s/FORTRAN I/Mythos/ for the 2026 version of this.

what do you think of it?

Beautifully written. Was this a note to self. If so amazing.