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A story about "real programmers"...

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JavaJones:
Hopefully some of you haven't read this before. It is apparently an old classic on the Internets, but I hadn't read it until today. I'm not a developer myself, but I'm in IT, so I think I "get it" enough to appreciate what this guy could do (and how crazy it is :D).

http://www.jargon.net/jargonfile/t/TheStoryofMel.html

- Oshyan

MilesAhead:
I didn't plow through the whole article because it brought back painful memories! I can remember my fingers aching after a day of hard coding.  Punching all those little holes in paper tape.  If the tape rips in the middle of a program, all the lights in New Jersey go out!! And then there's the paper cuts!!

Eóin:
It is a good story, the related article Real Programmers Don't Use Pascal has some fantastic quotes.

Here's a hilariously 'out of time' paragraph from it

In some companies, text editing no longer consists of ten engineers standing in line to use an 029 keypunch. In fact, the building I work in doesn't contain a single keypunch. The Real Programmer in this situation has to do his work with a "text editor" program. Most systems supply several text editors to select from, and the Real Programmer must be careful to pick one that reflects his personal style. Many people believe that the best text editors in the world were written at Xerox Palo Alto Research Center for use on their Alto and Dorado computers[3]. Unfortunately, no Real Programmer would ever use a computer whose operating system is called SmallTalk, and would certainly not talk to the computer with a mouse.
--- End quote ---

nishadds86:
The computer has a lot of advantage.The academics in computer science have gotten into the structured programming rut over the past several years. They claim that programs are more easily understood if the programmer uses some special language constructs and techniques. They don't all agree on exactly which constructs, of course, and the example they use to show their particular point of view invariably fit on a single page of some obscure journal or another-- clearly not enough of an example to convince anyone. When I got out of school, I thought I was the best programmer in the world. I could write an unbeatable tic-tac-toe program, use five different computer languages, and create 1000 line programs that WORKED (Really!). Then I got out into the Real World. My first task in the Real World was to read and understand a 200,000 line Fortran program, then speed it up by a factor of two. Any Real Programmer will tell you that all the Structured Coding in the world won't help you solve a problem like that-- it takes actual talent.

3of0:
Yes, the story has been around for a while.  I still love it. :)  Thanks for sharing it, I'm saving it and posting it in my cube. :)

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