When comparing Fortran vs Wolfram Mathematica, the Slant community recommends Wolfram Mathematica for most people. In the question“What are the best (productivity-enhancing, well-designed, and concise, rather than just popular or time-tested) programming languages?” Wolfram Mathematica is ranked 60th while Fortran is ranked 77th.
Ranked in these QuestionsQuestion Ranking
Pros
Pro Maximum performance
Fortran was designed from the beginning for maximum performance, and as one of the oldest languages in continuous use, the compilers are now very mature. Even hand-optimized assembly is usually slower, because the compilers are that smart.
Pro Lots of functionality
Pro Built-in CPU Parallelization
Pro Very mature
Wolfram Mathematica has been around for a long time without any major changes in the basic design.
Pro Coherent API over different domains
Pro Supports units and can do much more than just maths
Other platforms severely lack this useful feature.
Pro Fully integrated symbolic processing
Pro Very powerful and fast, also possible to get for free
Cons
Con Unintuitive data types and strange assignment statements
Representation of data still remains highly fragmented technically and one fumbles between data types and stumbles on strange assignment statements to attempt conversions of meaning.