The paper behind the program: a documentary history of FORTRAN

Purpose – This paper examines the role of documentation in the development, adoption, and stabilization of the FORTRAN programming language. It investigates how different types of documents collectively shaped FORTRAN as a sociotechnical system, enabling it to become the first widely adopted high-level programming language. Design/methodology/approach – This study uses a historical case study approach, focusing on documents produced between 1953 and 1966. Using diachronic genre analysis, it identifies and analyzes seven key genres of documentation – proposal, technical report, manual, scholarly article, primer, textbook, and standard – based on their form, content, and function. The analysis is informed by the concept of documentality and draws on actor-network theory to conceptualize the agency of documents within a network of technical and social actors. Findings – This study finds that documentation was central to FORTRAN's emergence as the first widely adopted high-level programming language. Each genre addressed distinct audiences and fulfilled specific communicative functions. These documents exercised collective document agency by enabling three interrelated patterns: (1) recruitment of users, (2) control of variation, and (3) articulation of technical design. Originality/value – This study contributes to studies of documentation by extending the concept of documentality from individual texts to interrelated sets of documents. It introduces the concept of collective documentality to describe how genres operate in concert to shape sociotechnical systems. This paper also offers a diachronic perspective on documentation in software development by demonstrating how genre systems evolve alongside the technologies they support.