14 Aug
2001
14 Aug
'01
2:58 a.m.
I dispute
that: Computers and computing go from strength to strength.
There's more than just PCs out there; the mighty mainframe still rules the
roost in many places, there's Apple Macs, VAX minis, Crays, and probably
many others I can't even think of. And, for the soldering-iron fans,
embedded computing is probably stronger than it ever was - *everything's*
got a computer or three in it...
In many places? The mainframe rules the roost period. What do you think
serves the databases that run the neato little things your PCs do on the
internet? IBM DB2/390. That's a
bit elitist, isn't it? Besides, most of the self-taught
programmers of whom you speak are not really programmers; they're merely
users with enough knowledge to be dangerous. Besides, if it wasn't for the
microprocessor and all that it begat, this list wouldn't even be here...
I don't know if I necessarily think this anymore, but whenever I used to
see droves of mindless PC zombies getting on the 'net, I used to think,
"Hmmm. Fresh meat." It wasn't
the PC that made cutting corners easy; it was the near-universal
use of BASIC - a fundamentally unstructured language - that is responsible
for the bulk of the "bad programmers"; and I say that as a professional
programmer who uses BASIC....!
That and all the stupid ass "crackers" who learned assembler just to get
free shareware. Maybe if
PASCAL had been the language de jour, today's self-taught
programmers would be better at it...
How about something like LISP or SML? Maybe Prolog (!)... I know I'm
pushing it with that one. > >No, not only will I not celebrate it, but I
need to
> >find a black armband to wear the rest of the month.
[..snip..]
I would've loved to have seen the Atari computers
take over. I still have
a couple of Hades I use regularly.
Cool.
-dq
Well, I'm off to dabble with my CBM PET, or
maybe the MZ-80K. They're fun,
but I wouldn't like to have to use them every day, day in day out...
I'll be off tinkering with my big-iron VAX and my S/390 G5 (ot).