Here's Guy Steele free associating on Fortran (on request): 

A solid wall of cinder blocks, painted institutional gray, with four of them missing in random locations. Through the four holes you can see a tangle of wires. One of the holes has been partly covered with a circular piece of pegboard. Three pink ostrich feathers have been hot-glued to the wall in a desperate attempt to create a festive mood. 

A programmer, as Sisyphus, pushing a huge square stone up Mt. Xinu. Despite the fact that it is square, it keeps rolling back down anyway. 

A drab brown metal box with rounded edges and corners--the 1950's look. Large, clunky typewriter keys that you have to PUSH (they go "*chonk*") and they produce only uppercase letters. Beside it, an operator limply holds a half-empty box of cards and gazes in despair on the thousand or so that have fallen all over the floor. 

Fortran is the color of compatibility at all costs. Fortran has the texture of sand and ball bearings, mixed. It is regular until you look at it more closely. It sounds like Phyllis Diller singing "Strawberry Fields Forever". It shines like purple Jell-O. 

Does this help?

--Guy