> Yeah, I know about keying in a half days work to be able to > play command line blackjack and I wouldn't go back to then > for anything. Them wasn't the good ol' days, nosiree Bob.
I have a certain nostalgia for the "old days" (yes, I've booted computers by loading the bootstrap using front-panel switches, and entered a hand compiled program in hex), because it was all so difficult. It's the same appeal that killer sudoko has, or playing chess, and demanded high levels of concentration and discipline. It was _really_ expensive because few people could do it well. The modern way of constructing systems is much better, and allows much more complex system to be designed, built and tested. All of the intellectual effort which used to go into invisible complexity (hand optimising compiled code, packing data into fewer bytes) now goes into providing greater "end user" functionality. This progression will lead to software development becoming an engineering discipline one day. We aren't there yet but sometime we will. I still like the nostalgia ... but would hate to have to go back to working in it. --------------------------------------------------------------------- To unsubscribe, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] For additional commands, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
