Date: Fri, 19 Dec 2014 13:18:30 -0500 From: "Littlefield, Tyler" <tyler@tysdomain.com> To: =?UTF-8?B?ZnJhbsOnYWkgcw==?= <romapera15@gmail.com>, freebsd-hackers@freebsd.org Subject: Re: [OFF-TOPIC] A real programmer would not stoop to wasting machine capacity to do the assembly as said Richard Hamming? Message-ID: <54946BF6.7000900@tysdomain.com> In-Reply-To: <CAK_6Rwf1-8Eq7PtKwBqT%2BFFaRir2Qw7f%2BzhThxHi3a1zd7oGLQ@mail.gmail.com> References: <CAK_6Rwenaphg00O9TnGCeAn_7-knBQMd7eq-mR%2Be7VRE2p04AQ@mail.gmail.com> <CAK_6Rwf1-8Eq7PtKwBqT%2BFFaRir2Qw7f%2BzhThxHi3a1zd7oGLQ@mail.gmail.com>
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On 12/19/2014 9:21 AM, françai s wrote: > Is true that a real programmer would not stoop to wasting machine capacity > to do the assembly? Is true that a real troll wouldn't stoop to waste bandwidth but to do the real work? 2014-12-19 11:52 GMT-02:00 françai s <romapera15@gmail.com>: >> [quote="http://worrydream.com/dbx/"] >> Reactions to SOAP and Fortran >> Richard Hamming -- The Art of Doing Science and Engineering, p25 (pdf book) >> >> In the beginning we programmed in absolute binary... Finally, a Symbolic >> Assembly Program was devised -- after more years than you are apt to >> believe during which most programmers continued their heroic absolute >> binary programming. At the time [the assembler] first appeared I would >> guess about 1% of the older programmers were interested in it -- using >> [assembly] was "sissy stuff", and a real programmer would not stoop to >> wasting machine capacity to do the assembly. >> >> Yes! Programmers wanted no part of it, though when pressed they had to >> admit their old methods used more machine time in locating and fixing up >> errors than the [assembler] ever used. One of the main complaints was when >> using a symbolic system you do not know where anything was in storage -- >> though in the early days we supplied a mapping of symbolic to actual >> storage, and believe it or not they later lovingly pored over such sheets >> rather than realize they did not need to know that information if they >> stuck to operating within the system -- no! When correcting errors they >> preferred to do it in absolute binary. >> >> FORTRAN was proposed by Backus and friends, and again was opposed by >> almost all programmers. First, it was said it could not be done. Second, if >> it could be done, it would be too wasteful of machine time and capacity. >> Third, even if it did work, no respectable programmer would use it -- it >> was only for sissies! >> >> >> John von Neumann's reaction to assembly language and Fortran >> John A.N. Lee, Virginia Polytechnical Institute >> >> John von Neumann, when he first heard about FORTRAN in 1954, was >> unimpressed and asked "why would you want more than machine language?" One >> of von Neumann's students at Princeton recalled that graduate students were >> being used to hand assemble programs into binary for their early machine. >> This student took time out to build an assembler, but when von Neumann >> found out about it he was very angry, saying that it was a waste of a >> valuable scientific computing instrument to use it to do clerical >> work.[/quote] >> >> If is true that a real programmer would not stoop to wasting machine >> capacity to do the assembly, is an unfortunate fact the real programmers do >> use to wasting machine capacity to do the assembly, compilers... >> >> > _______________________________________________ > freebsd-hackers@freebsd.org mailing list > http://lists.freebsd.org/mailman/listinfo/freebsd-hackers > To unsubscribe, send any mail to "freebsd-hackers-unsubscribe@freebsd.org" -- Take care, Ty http://tds-solutions.net He that will not reason is a bigot; he that cannot reason is a fool; he that dares not reason is a slave.
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