Path: utzoo!lsuc!maccs!ns
From: ns@maccs.McMaster.CA (Nicholas Solntseff)
Newsgroups: comp.edu
Subject: Re: a point to ponder
Message-ID: <1304@maccs.McMaster.CA>
Date: 8 Jul 88 20:43:14 GMT
References: <82400008@p.cs.uiuc.edu> <2103@boulder.Colorado.EDU>
Reply-To: ns@maccs.UUCP (Nicholas Solntseff)
Organization: McMaster U., Hamilton, Ont., Can.
Lines: 23


>In article <2103@boulder.Colorado.EDU> cdash@boulder.Colorado.EDU (Charles Shub) writes:
>>In article <82400008@p.cs.uiuc.edu>, gillies@p.cs.uiuc.edu writes:
>>> Think back a mere 15 years --
>>> how was computer science taught at the major schools?  People
>>> submitted card decks to computer operators and picked up their
>>> printouts [ much much ] later.  
>>
>>And because of the turnaround, we wrote programs differently than we do now.
>>We would find the errors instead of letting the compiler do it. Is the change
>>in how we write and debug code for the better or the worse ?  Why ?
>>-- 

Some seventeen years ago, when I was visiting a University in another country
I observed students punching several alternative versions of their programs
in order to beat a three- or four-hour turnaround with the batch system
then in use.

There must have been other places where the compiler took the place of human
thinking!

Plus ca change ...