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spainchaud · Joined: 15 Sep 2016 Posts: 4

I just downloaded FTN95 personal so that I could test out the compatibility with Xamarin mobile development, but FTN95 does not integrate with VS2015.

I have a large amount of Fortran code which I would like to use with numerical modeling on the iPad. I suspect that any .NET language can be used to create a portable class library that can be run on iOS and Android mobile devices. This would require working with the Xamarin integration that comes free with VS2015.

Right now I am in the process of porting a large C/Fortran electromagnetic modeling code to c# in preparation for creating a mobile app. This is very tedious and requires extensive testing and debugging in order to port code that has already been extensively tested. I would rather just reuse the Fortran. I think the key to making that work is FTN95 integration into VS2015. When can that integration be expected.

Although Xamarin only natively supports c#, there is documentation on their website showing how to use Visual Basic libraries for mobile development. I believe something similar could be done with FTN95.

silverfrost · Posted: Fri Sep 16, 2016 7:51 am Post subject:

FTN95 will not produce .NET code that will run on Android or iOS. It is strictly 32-bit x86 .NET.

LitusSaxonicum · Posted: Fri Sep 16, 2016 12:56 pm Post subject:

On the grounds that the whole point of .NET is to create a platform in which one could program for a range of operating systems, I always thought that FTN95's support for it was a rather pointless distraction. Either that, or Windows-only support through .NET was just a first step. After the Silverfrost reply, my charitable alternative is not sustainable, and I have to revert to my original belief.

My views, such as they are, are tinged with the fact that I cannot make head nor tail of the instructions on how to use Visual Studio, much less how to work with FTN95 in it, and Visual Clearwin+ doesn't seem to me to be visual at all! So when someone comes up with a query on the forum relating to .NET, my strongest emotion is envy at the brain power needed to even make a start, tinged with surprise that such a genius could ever have any programming problem at all ...

So .NET seems to be like one of those ghastly subtropical hellhole countries full of corruption, disease and violence: one knows that it is there, but one has no intention of ever visiting it. Should one wander into it by accident, one escapes as quickly as possible.

PaulLaidler · Posted: Fri Sep 16, 2016 2:39 pm Post subject:

I am not able to comment on the history of FTN95 .NET. However, the current lack of portability is determined by the extent to which the Win32 DLL salflibc.dll is accessed by FTN95 .NET.

I am confident that Visual ClearWin for .NET is indeed "visual". It means that you can create dialogs in a visual way using the Visual Studio .NET dialog editor. This is an editor that allows you to drag various controls on to a window and then move them about and resize them.

LitusSaxonicum · Posted: Fri Sep 16, 2016 4:40 pm Post subject:

Hi Paul,

If I'd ever got as far as that (VS .NET dialog editor), you may be right. I thought that the approach was incomprehensible in Visual Basic (years ago) and can't imagine that I got any smarter with the passage of 2 decades and declining mental acuity with age. I'm also someone who tries to read the documentation, and unfortunately, the reading age for the bit about Visual Clearwin is pitched at a level higher than mine ...

While I completely understand that FTN95 for .NET depends on salflibc.dll, that includes Clearwin, which to quote from you some years ago is a wrapper for Windows functionality. In combination, this makes the whole business of FTN95 for .NET miss the point of .NET rather, which is the point I was making, tongue in cheek - although that may have been missed due to an absence of emoticons.

Eddie

spainchaud · Joined: 15 Sep 2016 Posts: 4

That is unfortunate. I had assumed a .NET language would compile to an intermediate language. I will go back to porting the Fortran to c#.

spainchaud · Joined: 15 Sep 2016 Posts: 4

I think that as long as the Fortran compiles to CLR and only relies on the .NET libraries, it can be used by Xamarin in Visual Studio to make native iOS and Android apps.

spainchaud · Joined: 15 Sep 2016 Posts: 4

I looked at Lahey Fortran for .NET, since it pops up in a Google search. From the search results you get a link to a page that describes their .NET Fortran. However, when I go directly to the Lahey home page, I can find no .NET products. I went to the support page, but asking a question requires a registered serial number. They don't seem to have any forums. There was no customer service number to call. I was not impressed.

I suspect the Lahey .NET Fortran is discontinued, or well hidden.

BYW the key to using C# on iOS and Android is the integration of the Xamarin product into Visual Studio 2015. Which is why I can't use VS2013. I participated in a Xamarin webinar and asked if a .NET Fortran could be used as a portable library. They though it could work, if the Fortran compiled to the CLR and only used the .NET libraries.