Mine was much more trivial. It was back in college. I was getting my degree in Accounting; I thought programming sounded boring, but I should know something about it so I signed up for one class. Rather than talk about theory, our teacher set us to work writing simple programs in PL/C the very first day. I was immediately hooked.
A few weeks in he gave us an assignment but, for the first time, wouldn't let us see the input data ahead of time; instead he handed us some JCL cards to include in our decks. That day when I got to the computer center, many of my class were there in a bit of a panic, trying to figure out how to look at the data before writing their programs. That hadn't occurred to me, but I reflected a bit and thought it shouldn't be too hard. I punched up some cards to GET and PUT the input file 80 bytes at a time. When the printout came back, I stared at it in confusion; I knew about where to look for the inevitable compile errors, but something was different about the layout this time. I was still puzzling when my buddy said "You turkey!" in my ear. The program, of course, was trivial in hindsight. But we'd all been programming only two or three weeks; and, as I said, it's the only time it happened when anyone was watching, so I still remember it fondly, and pretend it counts among my triumphs even though it didn't approach the 30 lines I specified below. --- Bob Bridges, [email protected], cell 336 382-7313 /* You cannot depend on your eyes when your imagination is out of focus. -Mark Twain */ -----Original Message----- From: IBM Mainframe Discussion List <[email protected]> On Behalf Of Tony Thigpen Sent: Sunday, August 22, 2021 07:56 Once only since 1980. And this was back about 1985 when we wrote out our programs on paper sheets and the key-punch group put them on diskette. (Once in the system, we did have a basic editor to fix things.) It was not a 'small' program, but also not a 'large' program. It was in Cobol. Of course, 'size' was based on my then current thought processes. What is 'small' now would have been considered bigger then. It compiled and ran correctly the very first time. I have always wondered if any variable names or other typos were 'corrected' by the person in the key-punch group. Now days, my development methods are much different. More 'code and test base program flow' then 'code and test additions'. And, if the test run takes some time, I actually code more lines while each test is running. I also write mostly 98% assembler where a L vs LA will get me every time. So, I don't expect it to ever happen again. It's kind of like that perfect 25k gusty cross-wind landing, but nobody else was in the plane with you to see it. If nobody else sees it, did it really happen? :-) --- Bob Bridges wrote on 8/21/21 9:30 PM: > This part of the thread got me thinking. How often do you write a program > that works right the first time, with no compile or execution errors? I'm > not talking about two-liners, of course, or even ten-liners; let's say 30 or > thereabouts. Please specify the language, too, since it seems to me they > vary in error-prone-ness. > > I've done it occasionally, but by "occasionally" I mean "less than one time > in twenty"; maybe much less, I'm not sure, and only once in my life when > anyone was watching. That was in PL/C; mostly nowadays I write in REXX and > VBA. > > In fact my REXXes typically start out with at least ten or fifteen lines of > boilerplate, and any VBA/Excel program likely relies on a raft of common > functions and/or objects that are part of my regular library, so when I say > "30 lines", some of those lines don't really count. > > -----Original Message----- > From: IBM Mainframe Discussion List <[email protected]> On Behalf Of > Tom Brennan > Sent: Wednesday, August 18, 2021 13:41 > > ....one of my other supervisors/teachers would tell me about her application > experience. She said no matter how complex her COBOL programs were, they > would not only compile first time but would run perfectly. This of course > was due to her rigorous desk-checking which I assume took days. > > I remember thinking "that's crazy" but I just kept quiet. I'll give her a > break because that could have been at the time of card punching where such > desk-checking made far more sense. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- For IBM-MAIN subscribe / signoff / archive access instructions, send email to [email protected] with the message: INFO IBM-MAIN
