Path: utzoo!attcan!uunet!sco!seanf
From: seanf@sco.COM (Sean Fagan)
Newsgroups: comp.misc
Subject: Re: MEL - A *Real* Programmer
Keywords: Real Programmer, Hacker
Message-ID: <8449@scolex.sco.COM>
Date: 28 Oct 90 07:02:23 GMT
References: <7380.271c3129@ccvax.ucd.ie> <1990Oct23.235720.16178@nas.nasa.gov> <6089@nisca.ircc.ohio-state.edu>
Sender: news@sco.COM
Reply-To: seanf (Sean Fagan)
Organization: The Santa Cruz Operation, Inc.
Lines: 44


In article <6089@nisca.ircc.ohio-state.edu> smsmith@hpuxa.ircc.ohio-state.edu (Stephen M. Smith) writes:
>In article <1990Oct23.235720.16178@nas.nasa.gov> 
>>There is nothing to be proud of when one writes code so very cryptic
>>someone else has to waste 2 weeks of company time to figure out a how a 
>>loop exits.

Yes, there is.

Programming can be considered an art.  Note that the program in question was
a *game*.  "Mel" had a much more enjoyable time writing that program than
anyone playing it ever did.  Getting the last possible cycle out of a
program is a fun way to relax, for some hackers.

>>In otherwords, be clever when you have to, not just to show off.

And, again:  the program in question was a game.  Not only that, but just a
short time ago (20+ years), programmers *had* to write like that, on a lot
of machines.

Or are you two so complacent with VM and 20+MIPS machines that you think
noone ever has to worry about real time, or fitting the critical sections of
a program into memory, or trying to deal with real-world devices.

Try reading the source code to some device drives, at times.  That's about
the closes you're likely to get, I suppose, to what programmers had to deal
with 30 years ago or so.

>Exactly.  Fortunately as a new student to programming I have a very
>good instructor who emphasizes this very thing.  In the first weeks
>of class he has already emphasized portability and threatened to
>anonymously distribute each of our own programs to the rest of the
>class just to see if WE can be easily deciphered by our own colleagues.

A fine goal.  Now, he should also give you an assignment, and require that
it take X or less CPU seconds.  If you don't make that goal, you fail that
assignment.

-- 
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Sean Eric Fagan  | "*Never* knock on Death's door:  ring the bell and 
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