bk1@ukc.UUCP (02/17/86)
Ayto to arthro, kykloforise sto NET prin tria xronia, kai twra pou epese
sta xeria mou, theorisa kalo na to diabasete kai seis.
Afierwnetai ekseretika se olous ekeinous pou moxthoun ( Giannh akous ? )
mesa kai mesw twn newn STRUCTURED glwsswn na ftiaksoun wraia demena kai domh-
mena programmata. :-)
Gia mena omws, kai tharrw kai gia olh thn palia fournia, oi kartes, h
FORTRAN kai kapoioi CDC 1700 exoun mia omorfia, pou twra pia den brisketai ey-
kola...
KOPSTE META THN GRAMMH, KAI KRATEISTE TO.
===============================================================================
Real Programmers Don't Use PASCAL
Back in the good old days - the ``Golden Era'' of computers, it was easy
to separate the men from the boys (sometimes called ``Real Men'' and ``Quiche
Eaters'' in the literature). During this period, the Real Men were the ones
that understood computer programming, and the Quiche Eaters were the ones that
didn't. A real computer programmer said things like ``DO 10 I=1,10'' and
``ABEND'' (they actually talked in capital letters, you understand), and the
rest of the world said things like ``computers are too complicated for me''
and ``I can't relate to computers - they're so impersonal''. (A previous work
[1] points out that Real Men don't ``relate'' to anything, and aren't afraid
of being impersonal.)
But, as usual, times change. We are faced today with a world in which
little old ladies can get computers in their microwave ovens, 12-year-old kids
can blow Real Men out of the water playing Asteroids and Pac-Man, and anyone
can buy and even understand their very own Personal Computer. The Real
Programmer is in danger of becoming extinct, of being replaced by high-school
students with TRASH-80's.
There is a clear need to point out the differences between the typical
high-school junior Pac-Man player and a Real Programmer. If this difference
is made clear, it will give these kids something to aspire to - a role model,
a Father Figure. It will also help explain to the employers of Real
Programmers why it would be a mistake to replace the Real Programmers on their
staff with 12-year-old Pac-Man players (at a considerable salary savings).
LANGUAGES
The easiest way to tell a Real Programmer from the crowd is by the
programming language he (or she) uses. Real Programmers use FORTRAN. Quiche
Eaters use PASCAL. Nicklaus Wirth, the designer of PASCAL, gave a talk once
at which he was asked ``How do you pronounce your name?''. He replied, ``You
can either call me by name, pronouncing it `Veert', or call me by value,
`Worth'.'' One can tell immediately from this comment that Nicklaus Wirth is a
Quiche Eater. The only parameter passing mechanism endorsed by Real
Programmers is call-by-value-return, as implemented in the IBM\370 FORTRAN-G
and H compilers. Real programmers don't need all these abstract concepts to
get their jobs done - they are perfectly happy with a keypunch, a FORTRAN IV
compiler, and a beer.
* Real Programmers do List Processing in FORTRAN.
* Real Programmers do String Manipulation in FORTRAN.
* Real Programmers do Accounting (if they do it at all) in FORTRAN.
* Real Programmers do Artificial Intelligence programs in FORTRAN.
If you can't do it in FORTRAN, do it in assembly language. If you can't
do it in assembly language, it isn't worth doing.
STRUCTURED PROGRAMMING
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 examples 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. Some quick observations on Real Programmers and
Structured Programming:
* Real Programmers aren't afraid to use GOTO's.
* Real Programmers can write five-page-long DO loops without getting
confused.
* Real Programmers like Arithmetic IF statements - they make the code
more interesting.
* Real Programmers write self-modifying code, especially if they can save
20 nanoseconds in the middle of a tight loop.
* Real Programmers don't need comments - the code is obvious.
* Since FORTRAN doesn't have a structured IF, REPEAT ... UNTIL, or CASE
statement, Real Programmers don't have to worry about not using them.
Besides, they can be simulated when necessary using assigned GOTO's.
Data Structures have also gotten a lot of press lately. Abstract Data
Types, Structures, Pointers, Lists, and Strings have become popular in certain
circles. Wirth (the above-mentioned Quiche Eater) actually wrote an entire
book [2] contending that you could write a program based on data structures,
instead of the other way around. As all Real Programmers know, the only
useful data structure is the Array. Strings, lists, structures, sets - these
are all special cases of arrays and can be treated that way just as easily
without messing up your programming language with all sorts of complications.
The worst thing about fancy data types is that you have to declare them, and
Real Programming Languages, as we all know, have implicit typing based on the
first letter of the (six character) variable name.
OPERATING SYSTEMS
What kind of operating system is used by a Real Programmer? CP/M? God
forbid - CP/M, after all, is basically a toy operating system. Even little
old ladies and grade school students can understand and use CP/M.
Unix is a lot more complicated of course - the typical Unix hacker never
can remember what the PRINT command is called this week - but when it gets
right down to it, Unix is a glorified video game. People don't do Serious
Work on Unix systems: they send jokes around the world on UUCP-net and write
adventure games and research papers.
No, your Real Programmer uses OS\370. A good programmer can find and
understand the description of the IJK305I error he just got in his JCL manual.
A great programmer can write JCL without referring to the manual at all. A
truly outstanding programmer can find bugs buried in a 6 megabyte core dump
without using a hex calculator. (I have actually seen this done.)
OS is a truly remarkable operating system. It's possible to destroy days
of work with a single misplaced space, so alertness in the programming staff
is encouraged. The best way to approach the system is through a keypunch.
Some people claim there is a Time Sharing system that runs on OS\370, but
after careful study I have come to the conclusion that they were mistaken.
PROGRAMMING TOOLS
What kind of tools does a Real Programmer use? In theory, a Real
Programmer could run his programs by keying them into the front panel of the
computer. Back in the days when computers had front panels, this was actually
done occasionally. Your typical Real Programmer knew the entire bootstrap
loader by memory in hex, and toggled it in whenever it got destroyed by his
program. (Back then, memory was memory - it didn't go away when the power
went off. Today, memory either forgets things when you don't want it to, or
remembers things long after they're better forgotten.) Legend has it that
Seymore Cray, inventor of the Cray I supercomputer and most of Control Data's
computers, actually toggled the first operating system for the CDC7600 in on
the front panel from memory when it was first powered on. Seymore, needless
to say, is a Real Programmer.
One of my favorite Real Programmers was a systems programmer for Texas
Instruments. One day he got a long distance call from a user whose system had
crashed in the middle of saving some important work. Jim was able to repair
the damage over the phone, getting the user to toggle in disk I/O instructions
at the front panel, repairing system tables in hex, reading register contents
back over the phone. The moral of this story: while a Real Programmer usually
includes a keypunch and lineprinter in his toolkit, he can get along with just
a front panel and a telephone in emergencies.
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.
Some of the concepts in these Xerox editors have been incorporated into
editors running on more reasonably named operating systems - EMACS and VI
being two. The problem with these editors is that Real Programmers consider
``what you see is what you get'' to be just as bad a concept in Text Editors
as it is in women. No, the Real Programmer wants a ``you asked for it, you
got it'' text editor - complicated, cryptic, powerful, unforgiving, dangerous.
TECO, to be precise.
It has been observed that a TECO command sequence more closely resembles
transmission line noise than readable text [4]. One of the more entertaining
games to play with TECO is to type your name in as a command line and try to
guess what it does. Just about any possible typing error while talking with
TECO will probably destroy your program, or even worse - introduce subtle and
mysterious bugs in a once working subroutine.
For this reason, Real Programmers are reluctant to actually edit a
program that is close to working. They find it much easier to just patch the
binary object code directly, using a wonderful program called SUPERZAP (or its
equivalent on non-IBM machines). This works so well that many working
programs on IBM systems bear no relation to the original FORTRAN code. In
many cases, the original source code is no longer available. When it comes
time to fix a program like this, no manager would even think of sending
anything less than a Real Programmer to do the job - no Quiche Eating
structured programmer would even know where to start. This is called ``job
security''.
Some programming tools NOT used by Real Programmers:
* FORTRAN preprocessors like MORTRAN and RATFOR. The Cuisinarts of
programming - great for making Quiche. See comments above on structured
programming.
* Source language debuggers. Real Programmers can read core dumps.
* Compilers with array bounds checking. They stifle creativity, destroy
most of the interesting uses for EQUIVALENCE, and make it impossible to modify
the operating system code with negative subscripts. Worst of all, bounds
checking is inefficient.
* Source code maintenance systems. A Real Programmer keeps his code
locked up in a card file, because it implies that its owner cannot leave his
important programs unguarded [5].
THE REAL PROGRAMMER AT WORK
Where does the typical Real Programmer work? What kind of programs are
worthy of the efforts of so talented an individual? You can be sure that no
Real Programmer would be caught dead writing accounts-receivable programs in
COBOL, or sorting mailing lists for People magazine. A Real Programmer wants
tasks of earth-shaking importance (literally!).
* Real Programmers work for Los Alamos National Laboratory, writing
atomic bomb simulations to run on Cray I supercomputers.
* Real Programmers work for the National Security Agency, decoding
Russian transmissions.
* It was largely due to the efforts of thousands of Real Programmers
working for NASA that our boys got to the moon and back before the Russkies.
* Real Programmers are at work for Boeing designing the operating systems
for cruise missiles.
Some of the most awesome Real Programmers of all work at the Jet
Propulsion Laboratory in California. Many of them know the entire operating
system of the Pioneer and Voyager spacecraft by heart. With a combination of
large ground-based FORTRAN programs and small spacecraft-based assembly
language programs, they are able to do incredible feats of navigation and
improvisation - hitting ten-kilometer wide windows at Saturn after six years
in space, repairing or bypassing damaged sensor platforms, radios, and
batteries. Allegedly, one Real Programmer managed to tuck a pattern-matching
program into a few hundred bytes of unused memory in a Voyager spacecraft that
searched for, located, and photographed a new moon of Jupiter.
The current plan for the Galileo spacecraft is to use a gravity assist
trajectory past Mars on the way to Jupiter. This trajectory passes within
80_3 kilometers of the surface of Mars. Nobody is going to trust a PASCAL
program (or a PASCAL programmer) for navigation to these tolerances.
As you can tell, many of the world's Real Programmers work for the U.S.
Government - mainly the Defense Department. This is as it should be.
Recently, however, a black cloud has formed on the Real Programmer horizon.
It seems that some highly placed Quiche Eaters at the Defense Department
decided that all Defense programs should be written in some grand unified
language called ``ADA'' (c, DoD). For a while, it seemed that ADA was
destined to become a language that went against all the precepts of Real
Programming - a language with structure, a language with data types, strong
typing, and semicolons. In short, a language designed to cripple the
creativity of the typical Real Programmer. Fortunately, the language adopted
by DoD has enough interesting features to make it approachable - it's
incredibly complex, includes methods for messing with the operating system and
rearranging memory, and Edsgar Dijkstra doesn't like it [6]. (Dijkstra, as
I'm sure you know, was the author of ``GoTos Considered Harmful'' - a landmark
work in programming methodology, applauded by PASCAL programmers and Quiche
Eaters alike.) Besides, the determined Real Programmer can write FORTRAN
programs in any language.
The Real Programmer might compromise his principles and work on something
slightly more trivial than the destruction of life as we know it, providing
there's enough money in it. There are several Real Programmers building video
games at Atari, for example. (But not playing them - a Real Programmer knows
how to beat the machine every time: no challenge in that.) Everyone working
at LucasFilm is a Real Programmer. (It would be crazy to turn down the money
of fifty million Star Trek fans.) The proportion of Real Programmers in
Computer Graphics is somewhat lower than the norm, mostly because nobody has
found a use for computer graphics yet. On the other hand, all computer
graphics is done in FORTRAN, so there are a fair number of people doing
graphics in order to avoid having to write COBOL programs.
THE REAL PROGRAMMER AT PLAY
Generally, the Real Programmer plays the same way he works - with
computers. He is constantly amazed that his employer actually pays him to do
what he would be doing for fun anyway (although he is careful not to express
this opinion out loud). Occasionally, the Real Programmer does step out of
the office for a breath of fresh air and a beer or two. Some tips on
recognizing Real Programmers away from the computer room:
* At a party, the Real Programmers are the ones in the corner talking
about operating system security and how to get around it.
* At a football game, the Real Programmer is the one comparing the plays
against his simulations printed on 11 by 14 fanfold paper.
* At the beach, the Real Programmer is the one drawing flowcharts in the
sand.
* At a funeral, the Real Programmer is the one saying ``Poor George. And
he almost had the sort routine working before the coronary.''
* In a grocery store, the Real Programmer is the one who insists on
running the cans past the laser checkout scanner himself, because he never
could trust keypunch operators to get it right the first time.
THE REAL PROGRAMMER'S NATURAL HABITAT
What sort of environment does the Real Programmer function best in? This
is an important question for the managers of Real Programmers. Considering
the amount of money it costs to keep one on the staff, it's best to put him
(or her) in an environment where he can get his work done.
The typical Real Programmer lives in front of a computer terminal.
Surrounding this terminal are:
* Listings of all programs the Real Programmer has ever worked on, piled
in roughly chronological order on every flat surface in the office.
* Some half-dozen or so partly filled cups of cold coffee. Occasionally,
there will be cigarette butts floating in the coffee. In some cases, the cups
will contain Orange Crush.
* Unless he is very good, there will be copies of the OS JCL manual and
the Principles of Operation open to some particularly interesting pages.
* Taped to the wall is a line-printer Snoopy calendar for the year 1969.
* Strewn about the floor are several wrappers for peanut butter filled
cheese bars - the type that are made pre-stale at the bakery so they can't get
any worse while waiting in the vending machine.
* Hiding in the top left-hand drawer of the desk is a stash of double-
stuff Oreos for special occasions.
* Underneath the Oreos is a flowcharting template, left there by the
previous occupant of the office. (Real Programmers write programs, not
documentation. Leave that to the maintenance people.)
The Real Programmer is capable of working 30, 40, even 50 hours at a
stretch, under intense pressure. In fact, he prefers it that way. Bad
response time doesn't bother the Real Programmer - it gives him a chance to
catch a little sleep between compiles. If there is not enough schedule
pressure on the Real Programmer, he tends to make things more challenging by
working on some small but interesting part of the problem for the first nine
weeks, then finishing the rest in the last week, in two or three 50-hour
marathons. This not only impresses the hell out of his manager, who was
despairing of ever getting the project done on time, but creates a convenient
excuse for not doing the documentation. In general:
* No Real Programmer works 9 to 5 (unless it's the ones at night).
* Real Programmers don't wear neckties.
* Real Programmers don't wear high-heeled shoes.
* Real Programmers arrive at work in time for lunch [9].
* A Real Programmer might or might not know his wife's name. He does,
however, know the entire ASCII (or EBCDIC) code table.
* Real Programmers don't know how to cook. Grocery stores aren't open at
three in the morning. Real Programmers survive on Twinkies and coffee.
THE FUTURE
What of the future? It is a matter of some concern to Real Programmers
that the latest generation of computer programmers are not being brought up
with the same outlook on life as their elders. Many of them have never seen a
computer with a front panel. Hardly anyone graduating from school these days
can do hex arithmetic without a calculator. College graduates these days are
soft - protected from the realities of programming by source level debuggers,
text editors that count parentheses, and ``user friendly'' operating systems.
Worst of all, some of these alleged ``computer scientists'' manage to get
degrees without ever learning FORTRAN! Are we destined to become an industry
of Unix hackers and PASCAL programmers?
From my experience, I can only report that the future is bright for Real
Programmers everywhere. Neither OS\370 nor FORTRAN show any signs of dying
out, despite all the efforts of PASCAL programmers the world over. Even more
subtle tricks, like adding structured coding constructs to FORTRAN, have
failed. Oh sure, some computer vendors have come out with FORTRAN 77
compilers, but every one of them has a way of converting itself back into a
FORTRAN 66 compiler at the drop of an option card - to compile DO loops like
God meant them to be.
Even Unix might not be as bad on Real Programmers as it once was. The
latest release of Unix has the potential of an operating system worthy of any
Real Programmer - two different and subtly incompatible user interfaces, an
arcane and complicated teletype driver, virtual memory. If you ignore the
fact that it's ``structured'', even `C' programming can be appreciated by the
Real Programmer: after all, there's no type checking, variable names are seven
(ten? eight?) characters long, and the added bonus of the Pointer data type
is thrown in - like having the best parts of FORTRAN and assembly language in
one place. (Not to mention some of the more creative uses for #define.)
No, the future isn't all that bad. Why, in the past few years, the
popular press has even commented on the bright new crop of computer nerds and
hackers ([7] and [8]) leaving places like Stanford and M.I.T. for the Real
World. From all evidence, the spirit of Real Programming lives on in these
young men and women. As long as there are ill-defined goals, bizarre bugs,
and unrealistic schedules, there will be Real Programmers willing to jump in
and Solve The Problem, saving the documentation for later. Long live FORTRAN!
ACKNOWLEDGEMENT
I would like to thank Jan E., Dave S., Rich G., Rich E., for their help
in characterizing the Real Programmer, Heather B. for the illustration, Kathy
E. for putting up with it, and atd!avsdS:mark for the initial inspiration.
REFERENCES
[1] Feirstein, B., ``Real Men don't Eat Quiche'', New York, Pocket Books,
1982.
[2] Wirth, N., ``Algorithms + Data Structures = Programs'', Prentice
Hall, 1976.
[3] Ilson, R., ``Recent Research in Text Processing'', IEEE Trans. Prof.
Commun., Vol. PC-23, No. 4, Dec. 4, 1980.
[4] Finseth, C., ``Theory and Practice of Text Editors - or - a Cookbook
for an EMACS'', B.S. Thesis, MIT/LCS/TM-165, Massachusetts Institute of
Technology, May 1980.
[5] Weinberg, G., ``The Psychology of Computer Programming'', New York,
Van Nostrand Reinhold, 1971, p. 110.
[6] Dijkstra, E., ``On the GREEN language submitted to the DoD'', Sigplan
notices, Vol. 3 No. 10, Oct 1978.
[7] Rose, Frank, ``Joy of Hacking'', Science 82, Vol. 3 No. 9, Nov 82,
pp. 58-66.
[8] ``The Hacker Papers'', Psychology Today, August 1980.
[9] sdcarl!lin, ``Real Programmers'', UUCP-net, Thu Oct 21 16:55:16 1982phoenix@genat.UUCP (phoenix) (02/23/86)
Hey guys, you have *GOT* to read this posting! It's much to long to include in this follow-up, but believe me, it's worth subscibing to net.nlang.greek just to read. Ignore the first paragraph, it's just a blind to make those scanning quickly miss the meat of the posting. The line-count is the spoiler, though. Those who are having a love-affair with FORTRAN, though, had best 'caveat emptor'. Be seeing you... -- The Phoenix (Neither Bright, Dark, nor Young) ---"A man should live forever...or die trying." ---"There is no substitute for good manners...except fast reflexes."
phoenix@genat.UUCP (phoenix) (03/23/86)
In article <167@aecom2.UUCP> nschwart@aecom2.UUCP (Naftoli Schwartz) writes: >> Url thlf, lbh unir *TBG* gb ernq guvf cbfgvat! Vg'f zhpu gb ybat gb >> vapyhqr va guvf sbyybj-hc, ohg oryvrir zr, vg'f jbegu fhofpvovat gb >> arg.aynat.terrx whfg gb ernq. Vtaber gur svefg cnentencu, vg'f whfg >> n oyvaq gb znxr gubfr fpnaavat dhvpxyl zvff gur zrng bs gur cbfgvat. >> Gur yvar-pbhag vf gur fcbvyre, gubhtu. >> Gur Cubravk >> (Arvgure Oevtug, Qnex, abe Lbhat) >> >Can anyone out there in net land tell me who "Naftoli Schwartz" and why he has been rotating *my* unoffensive articles and reposting them to net under *his* name? A short extract is above to demonstate what he has been doing. FRUSTRATION!!!!! > -- The Phoenix (Neither Bright, Dark, nor Young) ---"A man should live forever...or die trying." ---"There is no substitute for good manners...except fast reflexes." ---"Never appeal to a man's "better nature". He may not have one. Invoking his self-interest gives you more leverage."