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Re: New HD [message #34347 is a reply to message #34331] Wed, 23 January 2013 12:05 Go to previous messageGo to next message
Dan Espen is currently offline  Dan Espen
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jmfbahciv <See.above@aol.com> writes:

> Dan Espen wrote:

>> jmfbahciv <See.above@aol.com> writes:

>>

>>> Dan Espen wrote:

>>>> Walter Banks <walter@bytecraft.com> writes:

>>>>

>>>> > Dan Espen wrote:

>>>> >

>>>> >> Walter Banks <walter@bytecraft.com> writes:

>>>> >>

>>>> >> > "Shmuel (Seymour J.) Metz" wrote:

>>>> >> >

>>>> >> >> In <50FAA334.9214FBE8@bytecraft.com>, on 01/19/2013

>>>> >> >> at 08:44 AM, Walter Banks <walter@bytecraft.com> said:

>>>> >> >>

>>>> >> >> >Hardware is still sold, a lot of the software developed in the

>>>> >> >> >last twenty years has been developed in the atmosphere of software

>>>> >> >> >should be *free*. There is little incentive for innovative software

>>>> >> >> >development.

>>>> >> >>

>>>> >> >> There's been plenty of free innovative mainframe software. For that

>>>> >> >> matter, there are free PC compilers and interpreters for a number of

>>>> >> >> languages, some quite innovative.

>>>> >> >

>>>> >> > The bulk of of the PC compilers are based on 30+ year old

>>>> >> > technology. In the PC world language design and implementation

>>>> >> > has been essentially stalled for several years.

>>>> >>

>>>> >> Any evidence to back up your assertion?

>>>> >>

>>>> >> I don't follow GCC all that closely, but it seems to me there are

>>>> >> new versions and release numbers and talk of forks. Must be something

>>>> >>

>>>> >

>>>> > There are lots of new GCC releases but the fundamental design

>>>> > has not changed. The design holes that were in GCC more than

>>>> > a decade ago remain.They still don't participate in language standards

>>>> > there overall code generation has only minimally improved in the

>>>> > last 15 years. LLVM has for the most part not really changed

>>>> > the fundamental issues in GCC although as a project it is better

>>>> > managed.

>>>> >

>>>> > Harsh words maybe but there is a lot of room for the addition of

>>>> > new technology but it will require major redesign and perhaps a

>>>> > million new lines of code.

>>>>

>>>> The wikipedia page gives a different picture.

>>>>

>>>> It takes bucks to participate in language standards,

>>>> besides, meetings are for losers.

>>>

>>> Depends on whether you can run a good meeting or not.

>>

>> A good meeting is one that doesn't happen.

>>

>> Actually, during the Y2K boom, we had "meeting training".

>> We got a whole bunch of rules, including one person holding a

>> stop watch.

>>

>> Adhering to all those rules improved a meeting, but meetings

>> are still not my favorite thing. Too much group think.

>>

>>> As much as we hated standards and their committees, we wouldn't

>>> have been able to survive or stay sane without them.

>>

>> What's better, standards or everyone using GNUMAKE?

>

> Honey, if there hadn't been all that work in the auld days

> by standards committees, you would not be working in the

> computing biz today.


Not your honey, and BS!

These days, the primary programming language I use is HLASM.
No standards committee in sight.

--
Dan Espen
Re: New HD [message #34348 is a reply to message #34336] Wed, 23 January 2013 12:09 Go to previous messageGo to next message
Dan Espen is currently offline  Dan Espen
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jmfbahciv <See.above@aol.com> writes:

> Dan Espen wrote:

>> Jorgen Grahn <grahn+nntp@snipabacken.se> writes:

>>

>>> On Tue, 2013-01-22, Gene Wirchenko wrote:

>>>> On 20 Jan 2013 21:51:31 GMT, Jorgen Grahn <grahn+nntp@snipabacken.se>

>>>> wrote:

>>>>

>>>> >On Sun, 2013-01-20, Christian Brunschen wrote:

>>>> >...

>>>> >> http://folklore.org/StoryView.py?story=Do_It.txt

>>>> >...

>>>> >> It turns out he wasn't noticing the space between the 'o' and the 'I' in

>>>> >> 'Do It'; in the sans-serif system font we were using, a capital 'I'

> looked

>>>> >> very much like a lower case 'l', so he was reading 'Do It' as 'Dolt' and

>>>> >> was therefore kind of offended.

>>>> >

>>>> >Seems to me that's not just the font's fault; you don't expect random

>>>> >words to be captitalized. Wonder why they insisted on "Do It" rather

>>>> >than "Do it" or "do it"?

>>>>

>>>> It was not random. It was a title which tend to have initial

>>>> caps on words.

>>>

>>> I'm not sure I understand. Are you saying the texts on GUI buttons

>>> are to be seen as titles, like the titles of movies or songs? I don't

>>> seem to see that much in modern GUIs.

>>>

>>> Uh, wait, I /do/ see it. Both browsers I use (Opera, Firefox) Do It

>>> That Way, in menus and buttons. Now that I see it, it looks weird and

>>> pompous, but I didn't notice before.

>>>

>>> Perhaps it's because I'm swedish and a Unix users. Both are

>>> lower-case cultures. Too Much Capitalization and a text looks either

>>> like a song title by The Smiths, or like it was written in 1724.

>>

>> Big letters, quicker recognition.

>>

>> At least I think that's the idea.

>>

>> At least they stopped short of ALL CAPS.

>

> There is a use for all caps. The reason there are two capital letters

> is for word separation when no space is allowed.


Except the GUI buttons we're talking about use spaces between words.
I actually see it on buttons, and menus.

Never really thought about it much, but I see:

Save Page _A_s...

not

Save page _a_s...

--
Dan Espen
Re: New HD [message #34349 is a reply to message #34281] Wed, 23 January 2013 12:02 Go to previous messageGo to next message
Ahem A Rivet's Shot is currently offline  Ahem A Rivet's Shot
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On Wed, 23 Jan 2013 10:45:32 +1100
"James O. Brown" <job654@ax.com> wrote:

>

>

> "Ahem A Rivet's Shot" <steveo@eircom.net> wrote in message

> news:20130122203219.bb7a8043a57c9c76865db82f@eircom.net...

>> On Wed, 23 Jan 2013 07:02:38 +1100

>> "James O. Brown" <job654@ax.com> wrote:

>>> It may not be required, but is often worth doing it the better way

>>> even if the other way has been partly coded, particularly when the

>>> better way has much more future.

>>

>> That depends entirely on how much future the code has in the first

>> place.

>

> Sure, but only the most trivial code has no future.


IME the future of a piece of code is constrained by the life of the
system it's embedded in. Most of the code I've written in my life is no
longer in use and will never be used again.

--
Steve O'Hara-Smith | Directable Mirror Arrays
C:>WIN | A better way to focus the sun
The computer obeys and wins. | licences available see
You lose and Bill collects. | http://www.sohara.org/
Re: New HD [message #34350 is a reply to message #34330] Wed, 23 January 2013 12:12 Go to previous messageGo to next message
Ahem A Rivet's Shot is currently offline  Ahem A Rivet's Shot
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On Wed, 23 Jan 2013 11:13:01 -0500
Walter Banks <walter@bytecraft.com> wrote:

>

>

> Ahem A Rivet's Shot wrote:

>

>> On Wed, 23 Jan 2013 09:44:51 -0500

>> Shmuel (Seymour J.) Metz <spamtrap@library.lspace.org.invalid> wrote:

>>

>>> In <kdol89$5qi$1@dont-email.me>, on 01/23/2013

>>> at 07:33 AM, Peter Flass <Peter_Flass@Yahoo.com> said:

>>>

>>>> Sometimes I'll flowchart a small piece of code if it's

>>>> particularly tricky,

>>>

>>> I've found that it's precisely the tricky code for which flowcharts

>>> are most useless. You have to carve the bird at the joints.

>>

>> Agreed. In fact for the trickiest piece of code I have ever

>> written I only found one tool sufficiently expressive and precise to

>> describe the solution. That was of course the code - I spent two days

>> trying to write a detailed design document/diagram/something before

>> giving up and writing the code while I still had all the detail and big

>> picture in my head. After I had written the code I was able to extract

>> a reasonable description to use as documentation for the next poor sod

>> to see it. I'd be prepared to bet that that code didn't get changed at

>> all from the time I left it to the

>

> We use design documents that log the design decisions and detail

> implementation choices..


That sounds like quite a high level document. We had one of those,
but this module was internally very tricky.

> I was in the middle of a consumer product design in Asia a few years ago

> and they had an interesting approach to software design. They started

> out by developing a large overview of the application that was broken

> down into modules . They as a team then created a application resource

> budget for each module. This include ROM and RAM requirements and

> CPU cycles or response time if that was an issue. Individuals were a

> assigned to be responsible for each module and provide current status

> during development.


That's pretty much how we do large system development - fine
details vary of course - usually it's a small team per module with dev and
QA people involved and that small team is responsible for all the module
level tests too.

> This did a lot for system reliability because each module was well defined

> independent of the system organization and could be independently

> swapped out. Unit testing at the module level was a big part of the

> testing process.


Absolutely.

--
Steve O'Hara-Smith | Directable Mirror Arrays
C:>WIN | A better way to focus the sun
The computer obeys and wins. | licences available see
You lose and Bill collects. | http://www.sohara.org/
Re: New HD [message #34351 is a reply to message #34344] Wed, 23 January 2013 12:14 Go to previous messageGo to next message
Ahem A Rivet's Shot is currently offline  Ahem A Rivet's Shot
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On 23 Jan 13 08:32:33 -0800
"Charlie Gibbs" <cgibbs@kltpzyxm.invalid> wrote:

> In article <20130123071108.0eb76a8c8471d12548232a73@eircom.net>,

> steveo@eircom.net (Ahem A Rivet's Shot) writes:

>

>> On 22 Jan 2013 23:15:02 GMT

>> Jorgen Grahn <grahn+nntp@snipabacken.se> wrote:

>>

>>> On Mon, 2013-01-21, Ahem A Rivet's Shot wrote:

>>>

>>>> Actually no - the first time I saw concurrency biting bad code

>>>> there were no threads, just multiple processes and a shared memory

>>>> segment.

>>>

>>> OK, but I'd argue such applications were and are not the norm.

>>

>> I wrote quite a lot of code that used shared memory before

>> threads became popular. Given my druthers I'd still do things that

>> way.

>

> Uh-huh. I finally bit the bullet on threads when I discovered

> that some Windoze APIs simply could _not_ be kept from blocking

> for minutes at a time.


I don't do Windoze code.

--
Steve O'Hara-Smith | Directable Mirror Arrays
C:>WIN | A better way to focus the sun
The computer obeys and wins. | licences available see
You lose and Bill collects. | http://www.sohara.org/
Re: New HD [message #34352 is a reply to message #34343] Wed, 23 January 2013 12:27 Go to previous messageGo to next message
Ahem A Rivet's Shot is currently offline  Ahem A Rivet's Shot
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On 23 Jan 13 08:23:38 -0800
"Charlie Gibbs" <cgibbs@kltpzyxm.invalid> wrote:

> I don't think many people realize just how many answers we work out

> on the fly, not really knowing them at the time they ask a question.

> I'm often reluctant to explain this; given their mindset it might

> destroy their faith in the infallibility they need us to have.


Somewhere about the web there's a flowchart of how people like us
solve problems for people on Windows - it's quite accurate.

--
Steve O'Hara-Smith | Directable Mirror Arrays
C:>WIN | A better way to focus the sun
The computer obeys and wins. | licences available see
You lose and Bill collects. | http://www.sohara.org/
Re: New HD [message #34353 is a reply to message #34333] Wed, 23 January 2013 12:45 Go to previous messageGo to next message
Rod Speed is currently offline  Rod Speed
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"jmfbahciv" <See.above@aol.com> wrote in message
news:PM0004D3F657940F76@ac8116b2.ipt.aol.com...
> Charles Richmond wrote:

>> "jmfbahciv" <See.above@aol.com> wrote in message

>> news:PM0004D3CBE8E91BEB@aca2fc49.ipt.aol.com...

>>> Charles Richmond wrote:

>>>> "Elliott Roper" <nospam@yrl.co.uk> wrote in message

>>>> news:200120132300522435%nospam@yrl.co.uk...

>>>> > In article <kdhgbp$3us$1@dont-email.me>, Charles Richmond

>>>> > <numerist@aquaporin4.com> wrote:

>>>> >

>>>> >> Now my new fear is... that *everything* I know will become

>>>> >> obsolete and useless in a pragmatic sense.

>>>> >

>>>> > That's everybody's fear. The half life of geekish knowledge is no more

>>>> > than 4 years. I can still write PDP-8 and 11 Assembler and nobody

>>>> > cares. Oh, and Teco...

>>>> >

>>>>

>>>> That's it in a nutshell, Mr. Roper!!! You (and I) can do a lot of neat

>>>> things like PDP-8 and PDP-11 Assembly language... and *no* one gives a

>>>> flying rat's ass about it anymore!!! It saddens me and it's

>>>> emotionally

>>>> taxing. All those things we know how to do... those things are as

>>>> *cool*

>>>> as

>>>> they ever were!!! People just can *not* appreciate them anymore.....

>>>> :-(

>>>

>>> But in this computing biz, what used to be will be done again. At some

>>> point, the underbelly of a system will be so complicated and so

>>> dependent

>>> on other complicated messes, that someone will come up with "new" bright

>>> idea of a PDP-8 or PDP-11 of the original days to do a task which is

>>> very

>>> important but doens't need all the fancy shmancy character machine

>>> language

>>> support.

>>>

>>> We may not see it; it took 2 more decades for people to "rediscover"

>>> multi-CPUs in an SMP configuration (they're still not quite there yet)

>>> than I thought would happen. The software underbelly is in such a mess

>>> that it may take a while for that to become better before the focus

>>> reverts back to hardware improvments.

>>>

>>

>> BAH, knowing that *someday* things may be better... after I have gone to

>> my

>> eternal reward... may be a little comforting. But while I'm here, I can

>> *not* "feel the love"!!! :-)


> This newsgroup will document how and why we did the things


Yes.

> that new kids will rediscover.


Nope.

> Perhaps they won't have to live with mistooks we made


They have to live with others instead.

> and wish we could do over.


None of those are likely to be relevant to them, even
with OSs and absolutely certainly not with UI stuff.

> For instance, the guy who disappeared when I asked

> a serious question, could have documented a lot about

> what instruction classes he would have liked but didn't do.


Bet he didn’t.

> There will be CPUs or cores which will have R^nISCs to do work

> which doesn't need all that fancy schmancy character data handling.


There have been for decades now.

> A class of instructions which were always very useful

> in DEC's biz were the byte instructions. I've never

> seen you guys talk about other manufacturers'

> instruction sets which had the equivalent to ours.


And no one much bothered to implement
those in the more recent cpus, for a reason.

> Ours could handle anything and we also had

> the test and set masked bit instructions.


> Once again, hardwaer is not my expertise

> so I can't talk much about it.


But plenty of us can.
Re: New HD [message #34354 is a reply to message #34331] Wed, 23 January 2013 12:46 Go to previous messageGo to next message
Rod Speed is currently offline  Rod Speed
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"jmfbahciv" <See.above@aol.com> wrote in message
news:PM0004D3F66860DFA1@ac8116b2.ipt.aol.com...
> Dan Espen wrote:

>> jmfbahciv <See.above@aol.com> writes:

>>

>>> Dan Espen wrote:

>>>> Walter Banks <walter@bytecraft.com> writes:

>>>>

>>>> > Dan Espen wrote:

>>>> >

>>>> >> Walter Banks <walter@bytecraft.com> writes:

>>>> >>

>>>> >> > "Shmuel (Seymour J.) Metz" wrote:

>>>> >> >

>>>> >> >> In <50FAA334.9214FBE8@bytecraft.com>, on 01/19/2013

>>>> >> >> at 08:44 AM, Walter Banks <walter@bytecraft.com> said:

>>>> >> >>

>>>> >> >> >Hardware is still sold, a lot of the software developed in the

>>>> >> >> >last twenty years has been developed in the atmosphere of

>>>> >> >> >software

>>>> >> >> >should be *free*. There is little incentive for innovative

>>>> >> >> >software

>>>> >> >> >development.

>>>> >> >>

>>>> >> >> There's been plenty of free innovative mainframe software. For

>>>> >> >> that

>>>> >> >> matter, there are free PC compilers and interpreters for a number

>>>> >> >> of

>>>> >> >> languages, some quite innovative.

>>>> >> >

>>>> >> > The bulk of of the PC compilers are based on 30+ year old

>>>> >> > technology. In the PC world language design and implementation

>>>> >> > has been essentially stalled for several years.

>>>> >>

>>>> >> Any evidence to back up your assertion?

>>>> >>

>>>> >> I don't follow GCC all that closely, but it seems to me there are

>>>> >> new versions and release numbers and talk of forks. Must be

>>>> >> something

>>>> >>

>>>> >

>>>> > There are lots of new GCC releases but the fundamental design

>>>> > has not changed. The design holes that were in GCC more than

>>>> > a decade ago remain.They still don't participate in language standards

>>>> > there overall code generation has only minimally improved in the

>>>> > last 15 years. LLVM has for the most part not really changed

>>>> > the fundamental issues in GCC although as a project it is better

>>>> > managed.

>>>> >

>>>> > Harsh words maybe but there is a lot of room for the addition of

>>>> > new technology but it will require major redesign and perhaps a

>>>> > million new lines of code.

>>>>

>>>> The wikipedia page gives a different picture.

>>>>

>>>> It takes bucks to participate in language standards,

>>>> besides, meetings are for losers.

>>>

>>> Depends on whether you can run a good meeting or not.

>>

>> A good meeting is one that doesn't happen.

>>

>> Actually, during the Y2K boom, we had "meeting training".

>> We got a whole bunch of rules, including one person holding a

>> stop watch.

>>

>> Adhering to all those rules improved a meeting, but meetings

>> are still not my favorite thing. Too much group think.

>>

>>> As much as we hated standards and their committees, we wouldn't

>>> have been able to survive or stay sane without them.

>>

>> What's better, standards or everyone using GNUMAKE?

>

> Honey, if there hadn't been all that work in the auld days

> by standards committees, you would not be working in the

> computing biz today.


Bullshit. It just wouldn’t be like it is today. It was never going to die
out.

>> I know what I chose.


>> If I could have, I'd have made the same choice for gcc.
Re: New HD [message #34355 is a reply to message #34332] Wed, 23 January 2013 12:49 Go to previous messageGo to next message
Rod Speed is currently offline  Rod Speed
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"jmfbahciv" <See.above@aol.com> wrote in message
news:PM0004D3F69820B375@ac8116b2.ipt.aol.com...
> James O. Brown wrote:

>>

>>

>> "Ahem A Rivet's Shot" <steveo@eircom.net> wrote in message

>> news:20130122164631.bc00565c3401ede1520e1533@eircom.net...

>>> On Tue, 22 Jan 2013 15:47:00 +0000

>>> Ibmekon wrote:

>>>

>>>> On Tue, 22 Jan 2013 08:55:04 -0600, "Charles Richmond"

>>>> <numerist@aquaporin4.com> wrote:

>>>>

>>>> >First, the pointy-haired bosses want the results "Right Now!!!" and

>>>> >force you to do a quick and dirty job to get it done quickly! Then

>>>> >they

>>>> >come back and say: "Hey, that was great!!! Give us one of those

>>>> >*every*

>>>> >week!" Now you have to go back and re-do the program to make it

>>>> >supportable. ISTM that's the genesis of your "necessary and

>>>> >sufficient"

>>>> >development cycle, sir.

>>>>

>>>> That is one scenario.

>>>>

>>>> Another I was alluding to is the scenario of coding without a

>>>> flowchart.

>>>

>>> Hmm - I haven't drawn a flowchart in decades.

>>

>> Me neither.


> <snort>


Snort all you like, its clearly that hardly any of us bother with them.

> I draw a flow chart every time I do my income taxes.


You always were one hell of a dinosaur.

We don’t need them even for complex code, let alone income taxes.
Re: New HD [message #34356 is a reply to message #34339] Wed, 23 January 2013 12:52 Go to previous messageGo to next message
Rod Speed is currently offline  Rod Speed
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"jmfbahciv" <See.above@aol.com> wrote in message
news:PM0004D3F68D650E06@ac8116b2.ipt.aol.com...
> Ibmekon wrote:

>> On 21 Jan 2013 13:06:19 GMT, jmfbahciv <See.above@aol.com> wrote:

>>

>> <All gone>

>>

>>> Any software developer who needed something from the monitor would

>>> not design a system call but simply read/write what s/he needed

>>> into the running kernal. Design reviews would not have refused

>>> this flavor of implementation since it was a corporate culture

>>> thing. If there had been questions, the developer would have

>>> plenty of history to point at to get his own way. Cutler tried

>>> to establish that system call wall but nobody else in that

>>> company knew nor wanted to understand the dangers of making that

>>> wall holey. They were running PCs which were single-user, single

>>> owner and didn't need the security that multi-user systems had

>>> to have. I still see this attitude in any PC implementation

>>> even though all now have to run multi-user even if there's

>>> only one human being touching it.

>>>

>>> Think about MS' backdoors which have to be there for the update

>>> services. The progammers would not wait to go through a system

>>> call design to get into the deep dark bowels of a running system.

>>>

>>> Bottom line to your question: unending security problems and

>>> bugs which, when fixed, beget 3 new ones.

>>>

>>>

>>> /BAH

>>

>> That confirms my belief - good fences make good neighbours.

>

> YBYA.

>

>

>>

>> That if security is not built in from the ground up of a computer

>> system - managers will not allow you to "retake the ground" later.

>>

>> MS Windows leave the front door open - a REGEDIT program allows access

>> to internal configuration parameters of Windows.

>

> Several times, I've tried to get people to talk about how Multics was

> developed, especially the details of the work involved. This included

> the process of developing a new thingie such a monitor call or a

> command to a device driver. Then there is the "ensuring everything

> works" processes. Over the years, the TOPS-10 group implemented

> self-disciplinary processes so that we immediately used what we made.

> Or the procedures of having a weekly monitor meeting which reviewed

> all the MCOs written in the MCO book. (monitor change order).

> The Multics group had to have had similar experiences but (I'm

> assuming) different solutions. This all has do to with minute

> to minute and daily work each of us did. None of this ever gets

> documented becuase it's a daily living habit. Each OS developer

> had his/her little habits which affected how an OS worked and what

> actually got shipped to customers.


Trouble is that there never were enough of those involved in that
stuff in the more obscure areas like Multics for it to be at all likely
that one of those will ever show up here given how usenet has
died in the arse so comprehensively recently. Just basic statistics.

And how its done with something like Linux is completely different anyway.
Re: New HD [message #34357 is a reply to message #34349] Wed, 23 January 2013 12:58 Go to previous messageGo to next message
James O. Brown is currently offline  James O. Brown
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"Ahem A Rivet's Shot" <steveo@eircom.net> wrote in message
news:20130123170229.8f96f4363a9781e7d468e8ed@eircom.net...
> On Wed, 23 Jan 2013 10:45:32 +1100

> "James O. Brown" <job654@ax.com> wrote:

>

>>

>>

>> "Ahem A Rivet's Shot" <steveo@eircom.net> wrote in message

>> news:20130122203219.bb7a8043a57c9c76865db82f@eircom.net...

>>> On Wed, 23 Jan 2013 07:02:38 +1100

>>> "James O. Brown" <job654@ax.com> wrote:

>>>> It may not be required, but is often worth doing it the better way

>>>> even if the other way has been partly coded, particularly when the

>>>> better way has much more future.

>>>

>>> That depends entirely on how much future the code has in the first

>>> place.

>>

>> Sure, but only the most trivial code has no future.


> IME the future of a piece of code is constrained

> by the life of the system it's embedded in.


But its difficult to predict what that life will be with plenty of systems.

> Most of the code I've written in my life is no

> longer in use and will never be used again.


Sure, but that doesn't say anything useful about how
long it had to be maintained for before that happened.
Re: New HD [message #34358 is a reply to message #34314] Wed, 23 January 2013 13:13 Go to previous messageGo to next message
Bill Findlay is currently offline  Bill Findlay
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On 23/01/2013 12:41, in article kdolns$9k0$1@dont-email.me, "Peter Flass"
<Peter_Flass@Yahoo.com> wrote:

> OS/360 had "threads," in the form of "tasks," almost from the beginning

(196x).

Where x > 4.

The Ferranti Orion's Management Program (OMP, its OS and predecessor of the
GEORGE systems for the ICL 1900), supported multithreaded applications as
well as multiprogramming of independent applications, ca. 1961. Threads
were called 'program branches'.

See:
<http://ferranti-orion.co.uk/pages/section10/10-1.htm>

Note the provision /in the instruction set/ for co-ordination of access to
shared data areas.

--
Bill Findlay
with blueyonder.co.uk;
use surname & forename;
Re: New HD [message #34375 is a reply to message #34257] Wed, 23 January 2013 02:04 Go to previous messageGo to next message
Morten Reistad is currently offline  Morten Reistad
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In article <kdmvld$ice$1@dont-email.me>,
Christian Brunschen <cb@mer.df.lth.se> wrote:
> In article <ItCdnUJWjKrPaWPNnZ2dnUVZ8hmdnZ2d@bt.com>,

> Andrew Swallow <am.swallow@btinternet.com> wrote:

>> On 22/01/2013 16:37, Chris Adams wrote:

>>> Once upon a time, Quadibloc <jsavard@ecn.ab.ca> said:

>>>> On Jan 21, 9:20 am, Stan Barr <pla...@dsl.pipex.com> wrote:

>>>> > If they'd used the original 999 number introduced in 1937 there would

>>>> > have been no problem :-)

>>>>

>>>> Interestingly enough, that's what they use in Britain.

>>>

>>> And here I thought the UK used 0118 999 881 999 119 7253.

>>>

>>> http://theitcrowd.wikia.com/wiki/New_Emergency_Services

>>>

>>

>> 999 still works. Some mobile networks will also accept 911.

>

> All of Europe, and all GSM networks, accept 112 :

>

> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/112_(emergency_telephone_number)

>

> So that may be an even better bet in many places.


Not quite all of Europe. Airport local phones always use 911.

-- mrr
Re: New HD [message #34376 is a reply to message #34215] Wed, 23 January 2013 15:26 Go to previous messageGo to next message
jgk is currently offline  jgk
Messages: 90
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In article <kdm9kd$mg5$2@dont-email.me>,
Charles Richmond <numerist@aquaporin4.com> wrote:
> But these programmers only wanted to know enough to get their present

> function done... any extra information was unappreciated.


You know what they say, give a man a fish, and he'll be back the next
day asking for another fish.
Re: New HD [message #34377 is a reply to message #34376] Wed, 23 January 2013 16:08 Go to previous messageGo to next message
Rod Speed is currently offline  Rod Speed
Messages: 3507
Registered: January 2012
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Senior Member
"Joe keane" <jgk@panix.com> wrote in message
news:kdph0s$mda$1@reader1.panix.com...
> In article <kdm9kd$mg5$2@dont-email.me>,

> Charles Richmond <numerist@aquaporin4.com> wrote:

>> But these programmers only wanted to know enough to get their present

>> function done... any extra information was unappreciated.

>

> You know what they say, give a man a fish, and he'll be back the next

> day asking for another fish.


Trouble is that it isnt possible to teach most of those how to fish.
Re: New HD [message #34378 is a reply to message #34376] Wed, 23 January 2013 16:26 Go to previous messageGo to next message
Charlie Gibbs is currently offline  Charlie Gibbs
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In article <kdph0s$mda$1@reader1.panix.com>, jgk@panix.com (Joe keane)
writes:

> In article <kdm9kd$mg5$2@dont-email.me>,

> Charles Richmond <numerist@aquaporin4.com> wrote:

>

>> But these programmers only wanted to know enough to get their

>> present function done... any extra information was unappreciated.

>

> You know what they say, give a man a fish, and he'll be back the next

> day asking for another fish.


On the other hand, if you teach him to fish he'll spend all day
sitting in a boat drinking beer.

--
/~\ cgibbs@kltpzyxm.invalid (Charlie Gibbs)
\ / I'm really at ac.dekanfrus if you read it the right way.
X Top-posted messages will probably be ignored. See RFC1855.
/ \ HTML will DEFINITELY be ignored. Join the ASCII ribbon campaign!
Re: New HD [message #34386 is a reply to message #34345] Wed, 23 January 2013 16:51 Go to previous messageGo to next message
Shmuel (Seymour J.) M is currently offline  Shmuel (Seymour J.) M
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In <kdp3vh$a12$1@dont-email.me>, on 01/23/2013
at 11:43 AM, Peter Flass <Peter_Flass@Yahoo.com> said:

> Not optimize in a hardware sense (that's why I quoted it), optimize

> in terms of the minimum amount of logic to get the job done.

> Sometimes a flowchart can show you where some code nan be moved

> around to eliminate extra branches, tests, etc.


And sometimes a flowchart simply obscures the logic.

--
Shmuel (Seymour J.) Metz, SysProg and JOAT <http://patriot.net/~shmuel>

Unsolicited bulk E-mail subject to legal action. I reserve the
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Re: New HD [message #34387 is a reply to message #34334] Wed, 23 January 2013 17:12 Go to previous messageGo to next message
scott is currently offline  scott
Messages: 4237
Registered: February 2012
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Senior Member
jmfbahciv <See.above@aol.com> writes:
> Scott Lurndal wrote:

>> Dan Espen <despen@verizon.net> writes:

>>

>>>

>>> A good meeting is one that doesn't happen.

>>>

>>> Actually, during the Y2K boom, we had "meeting training".

>>> We got a whole bunch of rules, including one person holding a

>>> stop watch.

>>

>> During the late 80's, our meeting training was compliments of

>> John Cleese's _Meetings, Bloody Meetings_.

>>

>>

>>

>> I spent most of the 90's as an organizational representative on

>> the X/Open base standards committee, and contributed to the

>> Unix International standards as well. We were very careful to avoid

>> invention in X/Open - to be included in the standard an existence proof must

>> already have been in existence, preferably by multiple vendors. It was

>> when the behavior of a given feature varied amongst vendors that things

>> got tricky.

>>

>> UI on the other hand, was all about invention (e.g. the DWARF standard came

>> from UI, along with the Large File (> 2GB) support extensions.

>>

>> The only standards that would have been interesting to DEC in the BAH years

> would

>> have been the ANSI language standards and character set standards, I

> suspect.

>

> There was also ASCII and FORTRAN and COBOL and all the comm shite


ASCII comes from ANSI
COBOL from CODASYL (whom I meant to mention explictly - I bundled
COBOL and Fortran into the ANSI bundle).

> and our internal standards, e.g., full file specifications, documentation,

> and hardware and FS had their own, too.


Every computer system manufacturer had internal standards, which
by definition aren't standards per-se, but rather OEM documentation.

> Oh, and EBCDIC and the entities

> which we invented but got adopted by the industry and


BCD -> EBCDIC. Neither of which were standards in the currently
accepted sense, but rather de-facto standards by virtue of widespread
(albeit incompatible) usage. The EBCDIC burroughs used was slightly
different than the IBM EBCDIC, for example.

scott
Re: New HD [message #34388 is a reply to message #34387] Wed, 23 January 2013 17:23 Go to previous messageGo to next message
Anne &amp; Lynn Wheel is currently offline  Anne &amp; Lynn Wheel
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scott@slp53.sl.home (Scott Lurndal) writes:
> ASCII comes from ANSI


story 360 was going to be ascii
http://www.bobbemer.com/P-BIT.HTM

except for ... from above:

The culprit was T. Vincent Learson. The only thing for his defense is
that he had no idea of what he had done. It was when he was an IBM Vice
President, prior to tenure as Chairman of the Board, those lofty
positions where you believe that, if you order it done, it actually will
be done. I've mentioned this fiasco elsewhere.

.... snip ...

by the "father of ascii"
http://www.bobbemer.com/FATHEROF.HTM
ascii papers
ttp://www.bobbemer.com/PUBS-ASC.HTM

other recent references to learson (and fighting bureaucracy)
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2013.html#11 How do we fight bureaucracy and bureaucrats in IBM?
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2013.html#12 How do we fight bureaucracy and bureaucrats in IBM?
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2013.html#18 How do we fight bureaucracy and bureaucrats in IBM?

past posts mentioning "father of ascii"
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2009k.html#26 A Complete History Of Mainframe Computing
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2009k.html#27 Origins of EBCDIC
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2009k.html#39 Mainframe Utility for EBCDIC to ASCII conversion
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2009k.html#41 Disksize history question
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2009s.html#63 CAPS Fantasia
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2010b.html#4 Happy DEC-10 Day
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2010q.html#65 They've changed the keyboard layout _again_
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2011.html#9 Typewriter vs. Computer
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2011j.html#67 Wondering if I am really eligible for this group
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2011k.html#6 50th anniversary of BASIC, COBOL?
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2011k.html#45 HP getting out of computer biz
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2011l.html#23 computer bootlaces
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2011n.html#5 Any candidates for best acronyms?
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2011n.html#45 CRLF in Unix being translated on Mainframe to x'25'
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2011n.html#55 "Geek" t-shirts
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2012.html#100 The PC industry is heading for collapse
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2012e.html#52 M68k add to memory is not a mistake any more
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2012e.html#55 Just for a laugh... How to spot an old IBMer
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2012k.html#73 END OF FILE
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2012l.html#36 PDP-10 system calls, was 1132 printer history
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2012l.html#84 72 column cards
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2012m.html#52 8-bit bytes and byte-addressed machines
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2012o.html#56 Reduced Symbol Set Computing

--
virtualization experience starting Jan1968, online at home since Mar1970
Re: New HD [message #34389 is a reply to message #34340] Wed, 23 January 2013 17:38 Go to previous messageGo to next message
Jorgen Grahn is currently offline  Jorgen Grahn
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On Wed, 2013-01-23, jmfbahciv wrote:
....
> One of the reasons I was a "bad" programmer was because I thought through

> everything, wrote the specs, then wrote the code. By the time I was

> writing code, the code was essentially writing itself.


That's not a goal in itself (unless terminal time is a limited
resource). But I assume you were also more likely to get it right
that way.

> In a production

> line environment like ours, this process took too long.


So far, I've never been under so much time pressure that I couldn't
either (a) make it right or (b) at least isolate and document the weak
areas.

I've never been impressed by "yes this code is not quite under
control, but we were in such a hurry" arguments. A lot of the
shortcuts people take start hurting immediately -- don't name a
function properly, and five minutes later you'll forget what it does
and use it incorrectly.

/Jorgen

--
// Jorgen Grahn <grahn@ Oo o. . .
\X/ snipabacken.se> O o .
Re: New HD [message #34390 is a reply to message #34092] Wed, 23 January 2013 17:48 Go to previous messageGo to next message
Jorgen Grahn is currently offline  Jorgen Grahn
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On Mon, 2013-01-21, Alfred Falk wrote:
....
> The central emergency number was introduced to North America in 1959 in

> Winnipeg, following the British model as 999. It was always my

> understanding that 911 won out because it was faster on rotary dials.


But not too likely to be dialled by accident or by a child just
interested in the funny rotating thing.

Sweden used to use 90000 -- one long rotation and four short.
Perhaps it's still supported; noone wants people to die because they
panicked and fell back to the emergency number they learned as kids.

/Jorgen

--
// Jorgen Grahn <grahn@ Oo o. . .
\X/ snipabacken.se> O o .
Re: New HD [message #34391 is a reply to message #34390] Wed, 23 January 2013 19:34 Go to previous messageGo to next message
Andrew Swallow is currently offline  Andrew Swallow
Messages: 1705
Registered: January 2012
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Senior Member
On 23/01/2013 22:48, Jorgen Grahn wrote:
> On Mon, 2013-01-21, Alfred Falk wrote:

> ...

>> The central emergency number was introduced to North America in 1959 in

>> Winnipeg, following the British model as 999. It was always my

>> understanding that 911 won out because it was faster on rotary dials.

>

> But not too likely to be dialled by accident or by a child just

> interested in the funny rotating thing.

>

> Sweden used to use 90000 -- one long rotation and four short.

> Perhaps it's still supported; noone wants people to die because they

> panicked and fell back to the emergency number they learned as kids.

>

> /Jorgen

>


That would not have worked in Britain because 0 followed 9 on rotary
dials. It was also sent as 10 clicks.

Andrew Swallow
Re: New HD [message #34393 is a reply to message #34352] Wed, 23 January 2013 19:50 Go to previous messageGo to next message
Walter Bushell is currently offline  Walter Bushell
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In article <20130123172727.4a3f1eea5649acd7b4132718@eircom.net>,
Ahem A Rivet's Shot <steveo@eircom.net> wrote:

> On 23 Jan 13 08:23:38 -0800

> "Charlie Gibbs" <cgibbs@kltpzyxm.invalid> wrote:

>

>> I don't think many people realize just how many answers we work out

>> on the fly, not really knowing them at the time they ask a question.

>> I'm often reluctant to explain this; given their mindset it might

>> destroy their faith in the infallibility they need us to have.

>

> Somewhere about the web there's a flowchart of how people like us

> solve problems for people on Windows - it's quite accurate.


If it's from XKCD it applies to Macintosh too.

--
This space unintentionally left blank.
Re: New HD [message #34394 is a reply to message #34387] Wed, 23 January 2013 19:51 Go to previous messageGo to next message
Walter Bushell is currently offline  Walter Bushell
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Senior Member
In article <bfZLs.213886$Ci3.209499@fed15.iad>,
scott@slp53.sl.home (Scott Lurndal) wrote:

> BCD -> EBCDIC. Neither of which were standards in the currently

> accepted sense, but rather de-facto standards by virtue of widespread

> (albeit incompatible) usage. The EBCDIC burroughs used was slightly

> different than the IBM EBCDIC, for example.

>

> scott


IBM EBCDIC was incompatible with itself, different for different
industries and countries.

--
This space unintentionally left blank.
Re: New HD [message #34395 is a reply to message #34335] Wed, 23 January 2013 17:02 Go to previous messageGo to next message
Shmuel (Seymour J.) M is currently offline  Shmuel (Seymour J.) M
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In <PM0004D3F703D1DA95@ac8116b2.ipt.aol.com>, on 01/23/2013
at 04:16 PM, jmfbahciv <See.above@aol.com> said:

> Shmuel (Seymour J.) Metz wrote:

>> In <20oof8l7fdoaod97758143cr2j7mktqgig@4ax.com>, on 01/20/2013

>> at 09:24 PM, Nick Spalding <spalding@iol.ie> said:

>>

>>> I came into the programming business via the hardware one. It has

>>> always mystified me how people can write programs without at least

>>> a basic idea of how the machine works.

>>

>> How do you learn to program a line of compatible computers where each

>> model has a different implementation? Your way is fine for one-off

>> designs in the 1950's, but breaks down for processor families.

>>

> SAme way you do when a new language standard is approved.


Which involves reading the language definition, not understanding a
specific compiler for it.

--
Shmuel (Seymour J.) Metz, SysProg and JOAT <http://patriot.net/~shmuel>

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Re: New HD [message #34396 is a reply to message #34340] Wed, 23 January 2013 17:01 Go to previous messageGo to next message
Shmuel (Seymour J.) M is currently offline  Shmuel (Seymour J.) M
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In <PM0004D3F639D1F8BC@ac8116b2.ipt.aol.com>, on 01/23/2013
at 04:16 PM, jmfbahciv <See.above@aol.com> said:

> One of the reasons I was a "bad" programmer was because I thought

> through everything, wrote the specs, then wrote the code. By the

> time I was writing code, the code was essentially writing itself.

> In a production line environment like ours, this process took too

> long.


ObPreachingToTheChoire What sort of delays were incurred when you
skipped the careful design documentation and then had to redo the code
because you guessed wrong? There's never time to do it right but
there's always time to do it over.

--
Shmuel (Seymour J.) Metz, SysProg and JOAT <http://patriot.net/~shmuel>

Unsolicited bulk E-mail subject to legal action. I reserve the
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Re: New HD [message #34397 is a reply to message #34346] Wed, 23 January 2013 16:53 Go to previous messageGo to next message
Shmuel (Seymour J.) M is currently offline  Shmuel (Seymour J.) M
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In <kdp422$a12$2@dont-email.me>, on 01/23/2013
at 11:45 AM, Peter Flass <Peter_Flass@Yahoo.com> said:

> Sounds like how IBM developed OS/360.


Not from what I've seen in the code, and not from what George Mealy
wrote about it.

--
Shmuel (Seymour J.) Metz, SysProg and JOAT <http://patriot.net/~shmuel>

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Re: New HD [message #34408 is a reply to message #34333] Wed, 23 January 2013 23:57 Go to previous messageGo to next message
swatto is currently offline  swatto
Messages: 37
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On 23 Jan 2013 16:16:40 GMT, jmfbahciv <See.above@aol.com> wrote:

> This newsgroup will document how and why we did the things that new

> kids will rediscover.


Yeah, well... I doubt it. If it is just some rhetorical decor to the
other things you've said, then I get your angle.

I have a 19th century book on torpedo technology. But nobody seems to
want to be rediscovering that.

But yeah, it'll be there. Just like the old Apple and IBM electronic
magazines. Looking at them now, they have some nostalgic amusement,
but there's nothing really there that would interest any kid today.

Canbear
Re: New HD [message #34409 is a reply to message #34393] Thu, 24 January 2013 01:02 Go to previous messageGo to next message
Ahem A Rivet's Shot is currently offline  Ahem A Rivet's Shot
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On Wed, 23 Jan 2013 19:50:03 -0500
Walter Bushell <proto@panix.com> wrote:

> In article <20130123172727.4a3f1eea5649acd7b4132718@eircom.net>,

> Ahem A Rivet's Shot <steveo@eircom.net> wrote:

>

>> On 23 Jan 13 08:23:38 -0800

>> "Charlie Gibbs" <cgibbs@kltpzyxm.invalid> wrote:

>>

>>> I don't think many people realize just how many answers we work out

>>> on the fly, not really knowing them at the time they ask a question.

>>> I'm often reluctant to explain this; given their mindset it might

>>> destroy their faith in the infallibility they need us to have.

>>

>> Somewhere about the web there's a flowchart of how people like

>> us solve problems for people on Windows - it's quite accurate.

>

> If it's from XKCD it applies to Macintosh too.


That sounds likely - and yes it would apply to any WIMP interface.

--
Steve O'Hara-Smith | Directable Mirror Arrays
C:>WIN | A better way to focus the sun
The computer obeys and wins. | licences available see
You lose and Bill collects. | http://www.sohara.org/
Re: New HD [message #34410 is a reply to message #34316] Thu, 24 January 2013 02:08 Go to previous messageGo to next message
Gene Wirchenko is currently offline  Gene Wirchenko
Messages: 1166
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On Wed, 23 Jan 2013 07:25:14 -0600, Andy Leighton
<andyl@azaal.plus.com> wrote:

> On Wed, 23 Jan 2013 07:44:59 -0500, Peter Flass <Peter_Flass@Yahoo.com> wrote:

>> On 1/22/2013 7:01 PM, Gene Wirchenko wrote:


[snip]

>>> I had an app where I needed an indexed order and the physical

>>> record order. I ended up creating an index on recno()!


>> A. Good idea.

>> B. How did you know that this corresponded to the physical record order?

>> What happened if you added?

>

> I presume this was a DBF file - recno() was the physical record number.


Yes, it was.

> All new records were added after the last record. It has been a long

> time since I've had to pull any of that info out of my head. I started

> work as a programming using Clipper - a dBase compiler which got extended

> into a capable language - and which was a competitor of FoxBase/FoxPro.


Sincerely,

Gene Wirchenko
Re: New HD [message #34414 is a reply to message #34391] Thu, 24 January 2013 03:03 Go to previous messageGo to next message
cb is currently offline  cb
Messages: 300
Registered: March 2012
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Senior Member
In article <H8WdnaUFJ4fwHJ3MnZ2dnUVZ7qCdnZ2d@bt.com>,
Andrew Swallow <am.swallow@btinternet.com> wrote:
> On 23/01/2013 22:48, Jorgen Grahn wrote:

>>

>> Sweden used to use 90000 -- one long rotation and four short.

>> Perhaps it's still supported; noone wants people to die because they

>> panicked and fell back to the emergency number they learned as kids.

>>

>> /Jorgen

>>

>

> That would not have worked in Britain because 0 followed 9 on rotary

> dials. It was also sent as 10 clicks.


In Sweden, digit 'x' was sent as 'x+1' clicks: '0' as 1 click, '4 as ' as
5 clicks, '9' as 10 clicks. Hence, '90000' was 10, 1, 1, 1, 1 clicks.

These days Sweden, like the rest of the EU, use '112'. Germany, when I
lived there, actually used 112 for fire/medical emergencies and 110 for
police.

> Andrew Swallow


// Christian
Re: New HD [message #34421 is a reply to message #34387] Thu, 24 January 2013 09:02 Go to previous messageGo to next message
Shmuel (Seymour J.) M is currently offline  Shmuel (Seymour J.) M
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In <bfZLs.213886$Ci3.209499@fed15.iad>, on 01/23/2013
at 10:12 PM, scott@slp53.sl.home (Scott Lurndal) said:

> ASCII comes from ANSI


Which had trouble standardizing its own name.

> The EBCDIC burroughs used was slightly

> different than the IBM EBCDIC, for example.


The EBCDIC that IBM used was slightly different than the IBM EBCDIC
)-:

--
Shmuel (Seymour J.) Metz, SysProg and JOAT <http://patriot.net/~shmuel>

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Re: New HD [message #34426 is a reply to message #34347] Thu, 24 January 2013 10:37 Go to previous messageGo to next message
jmfbahciv is currently offline  jmfbahciv
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Dan Espen wrote:
> jmfbahciv <See.above@aol.com> writes:

>

>> Dan Espen wrote:

>>> jmfbahciv <See.above@aol.com> writes:

>>>

>>>> Dan Espen wrote:

>>>> > Walter Banks <walter@bytecraft.com> writes:

>>>> >

>>>> >> Dan Espen wrote:

>>>> >>

>>>> >>> Walter Banks <walter@bytecraft.com> writes:

>>>> >>>

>>>> >>> > "Shmuel (Seymour J.) Metz" wrote:

>>>> >>> >

>>>> >>> >> In <50FAA334.9214FBE8@bytecraft.com>, on 01/19/2013

>>>> >>> >> at 08:44 AM, Walter Banks <walter@bytecraft.com> said:

>>>> >>> >>

>>>> >>> >> >Hardware is still sold, a lot of the software developed in the

>>>> >>> >> >last twenty years has been developed in the atmosphere of software

>>>> >>> >> >should be *free*. There is little incentive for innovative

software
>>>> >>> >> >development.

>>>> >>> >>

>>>> >>> >> There's been plenty of free innovative mainframe software. For that

>>>> >>> >> matter, there are free PC compilers and interpreters for a number

of
>>>> >>> >> languages, some quite innovative.

>>>> >>> >

>>>> >>> > The bulk of of the PC compilers are based on 30+ year old

>>>> >>> > technology. In the PC world language design and implementation

>>>> >>> > has been essentially stalled for several years.

>>>> >>>

>>>> >>> Any evidence to back up your assertion?

>>>> >>>

>>>> >>> I don't follow GCC all that closely, but it seems to me there are

>>>> >>> new versions and release numbers and talk of forks. Must be something

>>>> >>>

>>>> >>

>>>> >> There are lots of new GCC releases but the fundamental design

>>>> >> has not changed. The design holes that were in GCC more than

>>>> >> a decade ago remain.They still don't participate in language standards

>>>> >> there overall code generation has only minimally improved in the

>>>> >> last 15 years. LLVM has for the most part not really changed

>>>> >> the fundamental issues in GCC although as a project it is better

>>>> >> managed.

>>>> >>

>>>> >> Harsh words maybe but there is a lot of room for the addition of

>>>> >> new technology but it will require major redesign and perhaps a

>>>> >> million new lines of code.

>>>> >

>>>> > The wikipedia page gives a different picture.

>>>> >

>>>> > It takes bucks to participate in language standards,

>>>> > besides, meetings are for losers.

>>>>

>>>> Depends on whether you can run a good meeting or not.

>>>

>>> A good meeting is one that doesn't happen.

>>>

>>> Actually, during the Y2K boom, we had "meeting training".

>>> We got a whole bunch of rules, including one person holding a

>>> stop watch.

>>>

>>> Adhering to all those rules improved a meeting, but meetings

>>> are still not my favorite thing. Too much group think.

>>>

>>>> As much as we hated standards and their committees, we wouldn't

>>>> have been able to survive or stay sane without them.

>>>

>>> What's better, standards or everyone using GNUMAKE?

>>

>> Honey, if there hadn't been all that work in the auld days

>> by standards committees, you would not be working in the

>> computing biz today.

>

> Not your honey, and BS!

>

> These days, the primary programming language I use is HLASM.

> No standards committee in sight.


Someday, the biz is going to have reap the weeds it sowed.

/BAH
Re: New HD [message #34427 is a reply to message #34395] Thu, 24 January 2013 10:37 Go to previous messageGo to next message
jmfbahciv is currently offline  jmfbahciv
Messages: 6173
Registered: March 2012
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Senior Member
Shmuel (Seymour J.) Metz wrote:
> In <PM0004D3F703D1DA95@ac8116b2.ipt.aol.com>, on 01/23/2013

> at 04:16 PM, jmfbahciv <See.above@aol.com> said:

>

>> Shmuel (Seymour J.) Metz wrote:

>>> In <20oof8l7fdoaod97758143cr2j7mktqgig@4ax.com>, on 01/20/2013

>>> at 09:24 PM, Nick Spalding <spalding@iol.ie> said:

>>>

>>>> I came into the programming business via the hardware one. It has

>>>> always mystified me how people can write programs without at least

>>>> a basic idea of how the machine works.

>>>

>>> How do you learn to program a line of compatible computers where each

>>> model has a different implementation? Your way is fine for one-off

>>> designs in the 1950's, but breaks down for processor families.

>>>

>> SAme way you do when a new language standard is approved.

>

> Which involves reading the language definition, not understanding a

> specific compiler for it.

>

Huh? ARe talking past each other? EAch manufacturer's compiler
was different. Most had extensions to the standards. YOu scanned
each manufacturer's documentation and noted the differences, either
in your head (which I could do) or on paper. Any new aspect
is learned in this manner; at least that's how it was done in my
shop. When there is a brand new architecture, we got a two-hour
seminar. When there are slight changes to an architecture with
each new processor, we read the specs and were expected to know
it. EAch spec had a reading list of names attached the first page.
YOu read it when it came into your office, checked off your name,
and handed (or placed it on the chair) of someone who hadn't checked
it off.

That's how we worked.

/BAH
Re: New HD [message #34428 is a reply to message #34408] Thu, 24 January 2013 10:37 Go to previous messageGo to next message
jmfbahciv is currently offline  jmfbahciv
Messages: 6173
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Senior Member
Canbear wrote:
> On 23 Jan 2013 16:16:40 GMT, jmfbahciv <See.above@aol.com> wrote:

>

>> This newsgroup will document how and why we did the things that new

>> kids will rediscover.

>

> Yeah, well... I doubt it. If it is just some rhetorical decor to the

> other things you've said, then I get your angle.

>

> I have a 19th century book on torpedo technology. But nobody seems to

> want to be rediscovering that.

>

> But yeah, it'll be there. Just like the old Apple and IBM electronic

> magazines. Looking at them now, they have some nostalgic amusement,

> but there's nothing really there that would interest any kid today.


I don't make that assumption because making it is how knowledge gets
lost. Think of all the things which have been thrown away because
someone made the same assumption.

/BAH
Re: New HD [message #34429 is a reply to message #34389] Thu, 24 January 2013 10:37 Go to previous messageGo to next message
jmfbahciv is currently offline  jmfbahciv
Messages: 6173
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Jorgen Grahn wrote:
> On Wed, 2013-01-23, jmfbahciv wrote:

> ...

>> One of the reasons I was a "bad" programmer was because I thought through

>> everything, wrote the specs, then wrote the code. By the time I was

>> writing code, the code was essentially writing itself.

>

> That's not a goal in itself (unless terminal time is a limited

> resource). But I assume you were also more likely to get it right

> that way.


Both terminal and machine stand alone time was a scarce resource.

>

>> In a production

>> line environment like ours, this process took too long.

>

> So far, I've never been under so much time pressure that I couldn't

> either (a) make it right or (b) at least isolate and document the weak

> areas.

>

> I've never been impressed by "yes this code is not quite under

> control, but we were in such a hurry" arguments. A lot of the

> shortcuts people take start hurting immediately -- don't name a

> function properly, and five minutes later you'll forget what it does

> and use it incorrectly.


then you don't understand how OS development groups worked at DEC.
The goal was to get the hardware out the door. Period. There were
very few "software" projects other than lanugages and those were
supplied so we could sell hardware to the government.

DEC's OS people were smart and experienced enough to know when
and when not to take those "shortcuts".

/BAH
Re: New HD [message #34430 is a reply to message #34396] Thu, 24 January 2013 10:37 Go to previous messageGo to next message
jmfbahciv is currently offline  jmfbahciv
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Shmuel (Seymour J.) Metz wrote:
> In <PM0004D3F639D1F8BC@ac8116b2.ipt.aol.com>, on 01/23/2013

> at 04:16 PM, jmfbahciv <See.above@aol.com> said:

>

>> One of the reasons I was a "bad" programmer was because I thought

>> through everything, wrote the specs, then wrote the code. By the

>> time I was writing code, the code was essentially writing itself.

>> In a production line environment like ours, this process took too

>> long.

>

> ObPreachingToTheChoire What sort of delays were incurred when you

> skipped the careful design documentation and then had to redo the code

> because you guessed wrong? There's never time to do it right but

> there's always time to do it over.

>

I never guessed wrong. When I wrote that I thought through everything,
I meant it. There wasn't any guessing.

/BAH
Re: New HD [message #34431 is a reply to message #34387] Thu, 24 January 2013 10:37 Go to previous messageGo to next message
jmfbahciv is currently offline  jmfbahciv
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Scott Lurndal wrote:
> jmfbahciv <See.above@aol.com> writes:

>> Scott Lurndal wrote:

>>> Dan Espen <despen@verizon.net> writes:

>>>

>>>>

>>>> A good meeting is one that doesn't happen.

>>>>

>>>> Actually, during the Y2K boom, we had "meeting training".

>>>> We got a whole bunch of rules, including one person holding a

>>>> stop watch.

>>>

>>> During the late 80's, our meeting training was compliments of

>>> John Cleese's _Meetings, Bloody Meetings_.

>>>

>>>

>>>

>>> I spent most of the 90's as an organizational representative on

>>> the X/Open base standards committee, and contributed to the

>>> Unix International standards as well. We were very careful to avoid

>>> invention in X/Open - to be included in the standard an existence proof

must
>>> already have been in existence, preferably by multiple vendors. It was

>>> when the behavior of a given feature varied amongst vendors that things

>>> got tricky.

>>>

>>> UI on the other hand, was all about invention (e.g. the DWARF standard

came
>>> from UI, along with the Large File (> 2GB) support extensions.

>>>

>>> The only standards that would have been interesting to DEC in the BAH

years
>> would

>>> have been the ANSI language standards and character set standards, I

>> suspect.

>>

>> There was also ASCII and FORTRAN and COBOL and all the comm shite

>

> ASCII comes from ANSI

> COBOL from CODASYL (whom I meant to mention explictly - I bundled

> COBOL and Fortran into the ANSI bundle).

>

>> and our internal standards, e.g., full file specifications, documentation,

>> and hardware and FS had their own, too.

>

> Every computer system manufacturer had internal standards, which

> by definition aren't standards per-se, but rather OEM documentation.

>

>> Oh, and EBCDIC and the entities

>> which we invented but got adopted by the industry and

>

> BCD -> EBCDIC. Neither of which were standards in the currently

> accepted sense, but rather de-facto standards by virtue of widespread

> (albeit incompatible) usage. The EBCDIC burroughs used was slightly

> different than the IBM EBCDIC, for example.


So what? We still had to know whatever the rest of the world was
using so we could talk to those machines or read data ouptut by them
or produce data input by them.

/BAH
Re: New HD [message #34432 is a reply to message #34348] Thu, 24 January 2013 10:37 Go to previous messageGo to next message
jmfbahciv is currently offline  jmfbahciv
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Senior Member
Dan Espen wrote:
> jmfbahciv <See.above@aol.com> writes:

>

>> Dan Espen wrote:

>>> Jorgen Grahn <grahn+nntp@snipabacken.se> writes:

>>>

>>>> On Tue, 2013-01-22, Gene Wirchenko wrote:

>>>> > On 20 Jan 2013 21:51:31 GMT, Jorgen Grahn <grahn+nntp@snipabacken.se>

>>>> > wrote:

>>>> >

>>>> >>On Sun, 2013-01-20, Christian Brunschen wrote:

>>>> >>...

>>>> >>> http://folklore.org/StoryView.py?story=Do_It.txt

>>>> >>...

>>>> >>> It turns out he wasn't noticing the space between the 'o' and the 'I'

in
>>>> >>> 'Do It'; in the sans-serif system font we were using, a capital 'I'

>> looked

>>>> >>> very much like a lower case 'l', so he was reading 'Do It' as 'Dolt'

and
>>>> >>> was therefore kind of offended.

>>>> >>

>>>> >>Seems to me that's not just the font's fault; you don't expect random

>>>> >>words to be captitalized. Wonder why they insisted on "Do It" rather

>>>> >>than "Do it" or "do it"?

>>>> >

>>>> > It was not random. It was a title which tend to have initial

>>>> > caps on words.

>>>>

>>>> I'm not sure I understand. Are you saying the texts on GUI buttons

>>>> are to be seen as titles, like the titles of movies or songs? I don't

>>>> seem to see that much in modern GUIs.

>>>>

>>>> Uh, wait, I /do/ see it. Both browsers I use (Opera, Firefox) Do It

>>>> That Way, in menus and buttons. Now that I see it, it looks weird and

>>>> pompous, but I didn't notice before.

>>>>

>>>> Perhaps it's because I'm swedish and a Unix users. Both are

>>>> lower-case cultures. Too Much Capitalization and a text looks either

>>>> like a song title by The Smiths, or like it was written in 1724.

>>>

>>> Big letters, quicker recognition.

>>>

>>> At least I think that's the idea.

>>>

>>> At least they stopped short of ALL CAPS.

>>

>> There is a use for all caps. The reason there are two capital letters

>> is for word separation when no space is allowed.

>

> Except the GUI buttons we're talking about use spaces between words.

> I actually see it on buttons, and menus.


I understand that. But the Capitalization habit started when space was
not a valid character to use. ShEESH.


>

> Never really thought about it much, but I see:

>

> Save Page _A_s...

>

> not

>

> Save page _a_s...

>


That's properly written. GUIs had to be "different".

/BAH
Re: New HD [message #34433 is a reply to message #34421] Thu, 24 January 2013 11:08 Go to previous messageGo to previous message
Charlie Gibbs is currently offline  Charlie Gibbs
Messages: 5313
Registered: January 2012
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Senior Member
In article <51013efc$50$fuzhry+tra$mr2ice@news.patriot.net>,
spamtrap@library.lspace.org.invalid (Seymour J.) writes:

> In <bfZLs.213886$Ci3.209499@fed15.iad>, on 01/23/2013

> at 10:12 PM, scott@slp53.sl.home (Scott Lurndal) said:

>

>> ASCII comes from ANSI

>

> Which had trouble standardizing its own name.


ASCII stupid question, get a stupid ANSI.

>> The EBCDIC burroughs used was slightly

>> different than the IBM EBCDIC, for example.

>

> The EBCDIC that IBM used was slightly different than the IBM EBCDIC

> )-:


Sad but true. I once thought of calling Univac's variations
"UBCDIC", but it seems the rot was everywhere.

--
/~\ cgibbs@kltpzyxm.invalid (Charlie Gibbs)
\ / I'm really at ac.dekanfrus if you read it the right way.
X Top-posted messages will probably be ignored. See RFC1855.
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