Oh gosh yes, the amount of `just works` Fortran in science is one of those things akin to COBOL in business. I just know some people are thinking 10 years - ha, be some instances of 40 and possible 50 years for some. Heck, the sad part is many will have computer systems older than 10 years just as it links to this bit of kit and the RS232 just works with the DOS software fine as and the updated version had issues when they last tried. That's a common theme with specialist kit attached to a computer for control - medical as well has that.
I know two fresh PhDs from two different schools whose favorite language is fortran. I think it's rather different from cobol in that way -- yes, the old stuff still works, but newer code cuts down on the boilerplate and is much more readable. And yeah, the ability to link to 50 year-old battle-tested code is quite a feature.
