Modern Fortran Explained (Numerical Mathematics and Scientific Computation) 4th Edition

Starts at the beginning and covers it all. Recommend

Pretty tough read about the things you don't already know something about. I would love more examples of complete code. They have a lot of little snippets without an explanation of what else is needed to make them work.Also, there are some forward references - things that don't make sense until you have read the rest of the book.It would be quite hard to read this if you didn't already know a lot of Fortran, have some knowledge of Fortran standards since 1990, and know something about object oriented programming. That kind of knowledge is pretty much assumed.I would guess that a really good C++ expert could read it without too much prior knowledge of Fortran.The odd thing is that the first few chapters are pretty easy to read...The book is a lot easier to read than the Fortran standard itself. And it is a very comprehensive book.

I came to this book already having an understanding of Fortran 90 and having already written several large codes with it, but needing much guidance in the modern features made available in the 95, 03 and 08 standards details and wanting examples of how to implement these. This is one of the rare programming books that will always stay within reach at my desk. I agree with other reviewers that the book is very difficult to just read from beginning to end; it does jump around quite a bit, and it is meant much more to be a reference book for one looking for certain key features and maybe already having an understanding of other features. I am undecided whether it would be a good introduction, as I already had an understanding of the language fundamentals before reading, but I do like the repeated use of clear examples littering the text.

The primary purpose of this well-known book is to serve as a comprehensive Fortran language reference complementary to the ISO Standard. It explains almost every feature of modern Fortran in great details and clean prose, but requires a great deal of experience in Fortran programming. This is not (and not intended to be) an introduction to Fortran programming or programming in general for novices, rather it is an excellent reference for already experienced Fortran programmers.Recommended: as a language reference (complementary to the standard) for experienced Fortran programmers.Not recommended: as a textbook for beginners.

I am still looking for a good book on modern Fortran, something like Herbert Schildt on C/C++.At times Metcaff, et al, seem to be talking to a novice programmer, but then they launch off into abstract programming concepts suitable for a language standard.Many of the snippets are just expressions without assignments. In fact, they don't even get into simple scalar assignments until two thirds into chapter 3 -- after explaining arrays and structures.Program units and procedures are not touched on until chapter 5. An introductory "Hello, World!" would have been nice.They really seem to have trouble figuring out who their audience is. It's like they are paraphrasing the 90/95/2003/2008 standards to a novice programmer.And sin of all sins, they say GOTO is still OK! Come on. Users of this book will not learn how to write good Fortran with it. And we have enough lousy Fortran already. It really is possible to write readable, maintainable, even object oriented Fortran. I've even written readable FORTRAN 77. With no GOTOs!I am an experienced engineering programmer (16+ years) in FORTRAN 77, Ada, C/C++, Java, Matlab and Python, but I am finding it very difficult to get through this book without becoming very frustrated.Modern Fortran looks to be a fantastic language for Scientists and Engineers solving applied math and physics problems. It is very math oriented, unlike C/C++ which is geared more for non applied math algorithms. But, it is a slow slog to get into without a good reference.I'm going to try the Jeanne Adams, et al, Fortran 2003 Handbook. I'm not sure it will be much better.

When I first received the book I was dismayed that there were few whole program examples to look at. There are plenty of code fragments but I wanted to see how it all ties together. I decided to diligently read the book through from the beginning and quickly learned to appreciate the teaching style. If you are looking for a book where you can quickly look up whole programs, this is not the book for you. But if you want to thoroughly learn about a particular item in Fortran, then this book is excellent.

I needed an update on my handy Metcalf, Reid & Cohen that covers Fortran 90/95 and recently bought this 2011 edition that covers Fortran 2008 features. It fully meets my expectations as being easy to use as a reference, and it explains the myriad of syntax, features and intrinsic procedures of Fortran 95/2003/2008, and clearly notes differences, such as the optional "kind" argument for some intrinsic procedures that is not present in the Fortran 95 standard but appeared in the 2003 or 2008 standards.Anyone that uses Fortran 95/2003/2008 should have a copy of this definitive book within reach.

With a little deduction, this has been the only introduction and reference I needed for a Fortran 2003 project. I would have preferred something with more of the why and how (as in the O'Reilly style) because some deduction and cleverness is required to overcome the minor incompletenesses and lack of redundancy, and I hate guessing at the answer. Thus, overall, this is a good reference for experienced programmers but not a good introduction to Fortran or programming in general.

The book is very nice for a beginner as well as more advanced programmer. It covers most of the important topics in Fortran spanning over Fortran 77 to 2008. Some chapters that I couldn't find anywhere else in such a comprehensive way, are "C interoperability" and co-arrays. I would suggest this to beginners that have some basics in programming and advanced users that need to catch up with new fortran features and have a nice reference book.

Even as a 35+ year Fortran programmer, I use this book on a near daily basis. I find the exposition to be excellent for features I am using for the first time. And I also find it to be very useful as a reference source to which I return frequently, when I can't remember specific details.I don't think there is a better book out there covering the latest Fortran standard, both for relative beginners and old hands.

I bought this with no experience of fortran. This may be fine for programmers with some experience in Fortran but I found it incomprehensible as a novice.

IMO a very helpful reference book dealing with the currently available versions of fortran

Good introduction to coding in fortran