How Dangerous 2012-10-09

[shadowinthelight]

The only language I ever got semi fluent in was Turbo Pascal. My high school switched to teaching C++ the year after I graduated.

[MerchManDan]

I took Programming in the late 70's - I learned FORTRAN, WATFOR, and WATFIV.

Almost sounds like a programming joke.

Dexter: I finally learned FORTRAN!
Ernest: What for?
Dexter: I already know that one, but I don't use it as much.

[Haylo]

I took Programming in the late 70's - I learned FORTRAN, WATFOR, and WATFIV. And punched unending stacks of Hollerith Cards.....
I haven't understood how computer programs work since BASIC Compiler....

You young whippersnappers! Luxuriating in all those newfangled Hollerith cards! In my day we saved our BASIC code on paper tape that we had to roll up, uphill both ways! And we were glad of it!

[Dave]

You young whippersnappers! Luxuriating in all those newfangled Hollerith cards! In my day we saved our BASIC code on paper tape that we had to roll up, uphill both ways! And we were glad of it!

You had paper tape? and BASIC?

Luxury.

Back in my day, we had to scrape the machine-code bits directly into clay tablets with our fingernails, and drag the tablets to the computer room on a platform of logs while fending off attacks by sabretooth tigers. And nobody ever bothered to empty the bit bucket, so all the clay dust we scraped off blew around everywhere and got into everything, and we all died of silicosis before our programs finished running.

And we liked it!

[Jabberwonky]

Should that be prounounced 'loo-jher-ree!'?

Ha-Haa!

[lake_wrangler]

What I find annoying is that, having graduated from computer college "only" 15 years ago (that long already???), my knowledge is close enough to what's happening, or what was happening just a few years ago, that I feel like I just missed the boat, rather than having been left behind so long ago... I'm just not quite good enough...

[alj_ws]

I took Programming in the late 70's - I learned FORTRAN, WATFOR, and WATFIV. And punched unending stacks of Hollerith Cards.....
I haven't understood how computer programs work since BASIC Compiler....

You young whippersnappers! Luxuriating in all those newfangled Hollerith cards! In my day we saved our BASIC code on paper tape that we had to roll up, uphill both ways! And we were glad of it!

In the day of programming CNC lathes and mills, i used punched rolls. Now the really harcore ones were able to read the ISO code directly from the band without bothering to use a reader

[Fairportfan]

I took Programming in the late 70's - I learned FORTRAN, WATFOR, and WATFIV. And punched unending stacks of Hollerith Cards.....
I haven't understood how computer programs work since BASIC Compiler....

You young whippersnappers! Luxuriating in all those newfangled Hollerith cards! In my day we saved our BASIC code on paper tape that we had to roll up, uphill both ways! And we were glad of it!

In the day of programming CNC lathes and mills, i used punched rolls. Now the really harcore ones were able to read the ISO code directly from the band without bothering to use a reader

Heh. My former boss, Shankar Subramonian, could write 386 machine code straight (out of his head, no references) ... and it ran.

(Before founding AMI, Shankar was the leader of the team of Indian contract engineers who designed the first working 386 motherboard. Another of the team - and also at AMI - Sukha Ghosh designed the first hardware caching system.)

[jwhouk]

Ah, Turbo PASCAL. Good times. Completely useless, but good times.

[Atomic]

Applesoft Basic
Apple 6502 Machine language
UCSD Pascal
Forth
Turbo Pascal
Visual Basic
C++
HTML by hand
JavaScript
CSS
ColdFusion
SQL
blah, blah, blah........

Of all the garbage language programming languages and structures I've had to work with, the two most valuable weren't languages, but concepts. The book Starting Forth, and understanding Arrays.

Starting Forth taught me about Inside Out vs Outside In programming, by way of a marvelous cartoon. One side showed a wolf slavering at a baby in a baby crib, the other showed the baby laughing at the wolf in a cage. There are many ways of doing things!

Understanding Array structures (tables, etc) and the use of Rational Expressions pointed my way to everything from simplifying program structures and understanding database design. 3rd Normal Form, anyone?

Once you have the structural concepts down, it's just a case of learning the vocabulary (language) and grammar to apply those concepts.

I'm sooo glad I no longer have to carve my electrons by hand, too. Those days are long gone! I still know how to card and spin cotton/wool for thread/yarn if need be, though. Weaving is another thing entirely.

[Mark N]

I'm sooo glad I no longer have to carve my electrons by hand, too. Those days are long gone! I still know how to card and spin cotton/wool for thread/yarn if need be, though. Weaving is another thing entirely.

At least you will have a useful skill when the lights go out permanently.

[lake_wrangler]

Of all the garbage language programming languages and structures I've had to work with, the two most valuable weren't languages, but concepts. The book Starting Forth, and understanding Arrays.

Starting Forth taught me about Inside Out vs Outside In programming, by way of a marvelous cartoon. One side showed a wolf slavering at a baby in a baby crib, the other showed the baby laughing at the wolf in a cage. There are many ways of doing things!

Thanks for the tip. Found it online for free: http://www.forth.com/starting-forth/index.html
Now I "only" need to find time to read it...

Understanding Array structures (tables, etc) and the use of Rational Expressions pointed my way to everything from simplifying program structures and understanding database design.

Could you be more specific about the book title?

Meanwhile, much of my database design knowledge comes from Systems analysis & Design Methods (Third Edition), by Whitten, Bentley and Barlow. (I referred to it on a regular basis while normalizing my friend's database...)

3rd Normal Form, anyone?

You wouldn't want to see what my friend's database looked like, before I normalized it for him... and even now, I'm not always convinced I did it all properly, but I still continue to program it for him... (At first, it was for his own use, for a gymnastics club, but he has since sold a version of it to some kind of school, for which I am currently busy making modifications to adapt to their needs... keeping me busy, I tell ya!)

Once you have the structural concepts down, it's just a case of learning the vocabulary (language) and grammar to apply those concepts.

Yep. But even that still takes time, which is something I do not have much to spare...

[bmonk]

You young whippersnappers! Luxuriating in all those newfangled Hollerith cards! In my day we saved our BASIC code on paper tape that we had to roll up, uphill both ways! And we were glad of it!

You had paper tape? and BASIC?

Luxury.

Back in my day, we had to scrape the machine-code bits directly into clay tablets with our fingernails, and drag the tablets to the computer room on a platform of logs while fending off attacks by sabretooth tigers. And nobody ever bothered to empty the bit bucket, so all the clay dust we scraped off blew around everywhere and got into everything, and we all died of silicosis before our programs finished running.

And we liked it!

Reminds me of the demonic computer in Riddle of the Seven Realms by Lyndon Hardy.

[bmonk]

Ah, Turbo PASCAL. Good times. Completely useless, but good times.

Was PASCAL the language where every program was actually a subroutine?

[Atomic]

Understanding Array structures (tables, etc) and the use of Rational Expressions pointed my way to everything from simplifying program structures and understanding database design.

Could you be more specific about the book title?

My bad -- I meant to say Regular Expressions. The O'Reily series has it covered, for example, and I'm sure there are plenty of online resources to poke at.

The point is, once you understand that an array can represent any arbitrary organization of arbitrary data, the question becomes how to arrange it for minimal (preferably no) duplication (3NF at least), and how to access it (rational expressions). SQL, et al, is simply a styled manifestation of this concept, providing both the array (database) and the access tools (SQL coding). Drupal, for example, is an example of the box in a box in a box (Outside In programming) for web pages. You establish a hierarchy of containers (think CSS name= attribute), set them in a database, establish layout with item locations, then finally populate the containers with whatever you like. Want to change a price? Poke the database, not re-write the whole page. Lather, rinse, repeat.

Glad you found Starting Forth online. That's the book I was referring to. Granted, it's tailored for the Forth language, but the concepts are what counts. Learn what tools can do, then learn to apply the specific tool to meet your needs. That's why you really need a handle on Algebra and the various math operators in any decent spreadsheet program to build good Regular Expressions!

Happy coding!

P.S. -- Geez are we off topic here! Probably should have relocated this stuff to the Pub somewhere, eh?

[Atomic]

Ah, Turbo PASCAL. Good times. Completely useless, but good times.

Was PASCAL the language where every program was actually a subroutine?

Basically, yes, which was a break from GOTO programming by line numbers. GOSUB programming always intended a return, forcing you to consider handlers for them. By quitting the line number structure, you could build by function and not fuss about lines at all. Stylistically, you really need to keep a Subroutine down to 100 lines or less if you can, because it makes for easier documentation and maintenance. Also, if forces you to look for common code, which you can then generalize and make one Sub with 20 calls instead of 20 variations of the nearly same function scattered through the program.

If you were really good, you could basically flowchart your entire program, then code from the chart. Say some, anyway!