Illustrative Fortran is the intellectual property of Agi Celestial aimed at helping upcoming programmers to get to learn programming and some related information about computers in a simple way.
Why? Most programming materials are provided for experts in programming, such that having basic knowledge of mathematics and how to operate a computer is not enough for a beginning programmer using those materials.
Some materials are written with terminologies you are assumed to have known before trying to learn computer programming. Those terminologies in most cases are not given simpler alternatives or even explained to a certain limit for easy understanding.
Many who would have come to know programming abandon it after learning it in academic institutions, as it is presented in a very had way and frustrating to learn; especially, in this part of the world, west African.
Sincerely, the target audience of most computer programming materials are computer scientists and engineers. Still, I have seen where some of them battle with such materials to understand them.
Illustrative Fortran is aimed at breaching these barriers with detailed explanation and simple English. As well as providing mathematical proofs where necessary to aid the programmer grasp what is being done, how it is done, and how it came about.
It uses modern Fortran up to the latest revision to introduce the user to computer programming. All that is required by the user is provided in “Introduction.”
Fortran is one of the oldest programming languages still in use. Not as popular and commonly used, though, as some other programming languages which came into existence after it.
Yet, it is a good start for a beginning programmer who can speak English, as its programs contain instructions that are almost like making English accepted statements, apart from the fact that symbols are involved in some.
And each instruction is called a statement; this is common to some programming languages.
Illustrative Fortran includes information about other programming languages where necessary to make the user flexible. Such that he can easily learn another programming language having an entirely different language structure from that of Fortran.
References for further reading and exercises are provided in almost all chapters. A lot of information contained is gotten from standard books released by the International Organization for Standardization (ISO), International Electrotechnical Commission (IEC), and the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE).
While you look forward to unveiling what Illustrative Fortran has for you, prepare your mind for a serious study of computer programming.
Look forward to how the things you learn are implemented in a computer, making it to work the way it does. Imagine the effects and how it will be if you were the computer taking the instructions instead.
Then find out the benefits of learning how a computer works and why you should know.
Best regards,
Agi Celestial.
