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From: ram%shukra@Sun.COM (Renu Raman, Sun Microsystems)
Newsgroups: comp.arch
Subject: Re: brash micros versus the Big Iron: not yet (little humor)
Message-ID: <27323@sun.uucp>
Date: Sat, 5-Sep-87 14:57:58 EDT
Article-I.D.: sun.27323
Posted: Sat Sep  5 14:57:58 1987
Date-Received: Sun, 6-Sep-87 06:26:52 EDT
References: <622@winchester.UUCP> <12953@amdahl.amdahl.com> <630@winchester.UUCP> <2670@ames.arpa>
Sender: news@sun.uucp
Lines: 34
Summary: Malleable of hardware/software

In article <2670@ames.arpa>, eugene@pioneer.arpa (Eugene Miya N.) writes:
> I really have to get back to work, but Lawrence Crowl writes:
> >In article <1297@geac.UUCP> john@geac.UUCP (John Henshaw) writes:
> >>..., software is more "malleable" than hardware and therefore in many ways,
> >>far easier to work with than hardware.
> >> . . . but I believe that the cost of
> >>repairing those software mistakes is *usually* lower than that of hardware.
> >
> >Yes.  A thousand chip board is far less mallable than a thousand line program.
> 
> [....]
> the world.  If hardware is so `hard,' how come there are all these COBOL
> and FORTRAN (and LISP, and soon Pascal and C) dusty decks, I mean, programs
> lying around?  ;-)  No, I think they should switch names.  The advantage of
> [....]
> 
> --eugene miya


   Lets not get confused between hard(ness/ware), soft(ness/ware) and malleable.

   I am reminded of grand old uncle Edsgar Djisktra quote (I think during his
   Turing award lecture)

   "Fortran's tragic fate has been its wide acceptance, mentally chaining
   thousands and thousands of programmers to our past mistakes.  I pray
   daily that more of my fellow-programmers may find the means of freeing
   themselves from the curse of compatibility".

---------------------
   Renu Raman				ARPA:ram@sun.com
   Sun Microsystems			UUCP:{ucbvax,seismo,hplabs}!sun!ram
   M/S 5-40, 2500 Garcia Avenue,
   Mt. View,  CA 94043