Marcus -
> P.S. Brush with greatness: I have a copy of Knuth's seminumerical
algorithms which was once owned by Brosl Hasslacher.
Grin... *I* knew Brosl back in the CNLS (mid-80s) days, everyone who
played computers had the three volume (at the time) set of his books on
their shelves. I neither realized he was still at LANL through 2003
nor that he had passed in 2005... I'm feeling old!
I sadly lost track of a MANIAC Manual once owned by Nick Metropolis!
I used to schlep in and out of the lab on a similar schedule with Nick
(mid 90's?)... *he* was a presence, even then... I felt like I was
transported back to the days of the manhattan project!
In *my* day, The Art of Computer Programming was about all there was (or
needed to be) for the bulk of scientific and engineering programming.
It took the place of the many (very useful and high quality) libraries
so available today to all of us at the click of a link.
It was standard practice to go refresh yourself on something as simple
as a binary sort before coding it up *!inline!* in some important thing
you were doing or another. Feels grossly inefficient today, but wasn't
that different than the master craftsman who whets his blades every time
he sets out to make something... it takes but a few minutes and is a
good meditative reflection.
I'm wondering what the equivalent is today? I know it sounds
nostalgic, and I don't recommend *anyone* going back to the style of
programming ( goto ) and algorithm implementation/development I grew up
on, but I do wonder what takes it's place? The meditative/reflective
aspect?
I know I'm probably one of the younger of the elders here in this
domain, and I know some such (e.g. Doug) spend more hands-on time with
code today than I do by a longshot, and keep up (sort of) with
contemporary methods (I'm still stuck in Vi and sometimes get nostalgic
about Ed/Ex that *it* grew out of, not to mention *VIM* or the evil
Emacs!). But I know there are a new crop of power programmers here too
who might not have been born (or at least introduced to programming)
before OO methods, etc.
- Steve
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