One other practical advantage that it is that when a collaborator gives me Julia code I can (sometimes) actually read it. I am really not capable with Fortran at all and you say that modern Fortran sort of looks like higher-level code, so maybe this isn’t true for more capable Fortran programmers. But I’ve definitely had several experiences where I look at an applied math paper and think “oh wow, neat, I’d like to look at the code for that” and then go take a look and find it completely inscrutable. I’m sure that’s plenty my fault and I don’t mean to say that as a knock on Fortran. But I might go so far as to opine that the average applied mathematician, who is not a software engineer, is more likely to write readable Julia than readable Fortran. And while I love code performance as much as the next person, I try to maintain perspective of the fact that I am an academic researcher and not a software engineer, so readability and collaborative ease are pretty high priorities for me, even if they come at the cost of some speed (although to my knowledge they haven’t, at least for my applications).
With all that said, if you like using Fortran and don’t find some of the more verbose or boilerplate-heavy things annoying, then I’m not sure I’d be all that pushy in trying to convince you to adopt Julia. It sounds like you’ve got a tool you like and that’s great.
I’m also a bit concerned that this thread will read like some hardcore evangelism. While I can’t speak for other people, I would guess that they’re more sharing why they were excited to pick up this tool than they are actively trying to talk somebody else, who I assume is a complete stranger, into using it. So I hope that this thread doesn’t end up feeling like a dogpile.