When I was going to "programming school" we had to walk to school and back and it was uphill both ways.
On 6/1/05, Frank W. Zammetti <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > On Wed, June 1, 2005 12:15 pm, Simon Chappell said: > > Back when I was a young programmer we used to have to think. THINK! > > Hey, I'm the resident bemoaner of how rough we used to have it! How dare > you take my job?!? :) LOL > > > Oh > > the humanity. No patterns for us. Just endless cups of tea, a pad of > > paper (or the back of long listings on greenbar) and your flowchart > > stencil. > > Stencils?!? I laugh at your stencils! It was only freehand drawings for > us, and that was when we took the time to actually PLAN anything! > > > We had it rough I tell you, but I think that we wrote better > > code back in those days. And those of us that came through them, still > > have a tendency to do so. > > I have said on numerous occassions that programmers that have never > touched Assembly are, with few exceptions, not as good. And although the > overall tone of my reply here is a joking one, this is a point I am > serious about. > > I have actually rejected resumes because they had no Assembly experience. > I'm not saying you have to be able to hand-code a 3D game engine, but at > least have had some exposure. > > I spent a number of years doing absolutely nothing BUT Assembly, and while > I honestly haven't done anything beyond some very simple subfunctions in > the past 5-7 years or so, I wouldn't trade that experience for all the > algorithm classes and patterns knowledge in the world. There is NOTHING > like understanding, at least at a conceptual level, what's going on down > there in the lower layers of your machine. Assembly gives you this. > > Like I said, there are exceptions to this rule, but I haven't met too many. > > > My first computer had 1K, yes, that's 1024 bytes. > > Timex Sinclair 1000 by any chance? I loved that little thing! So much so > that I spend $200 on one off eBay last year (three of them actually, with > a lot of extras). The best thing about it was that if you could manage > anything decent on it you were learning... I crammed the entire catalog of > movie times for a week for Long Island in it... invented my own > rudimentary compression scheme (although I had no clue what "compression" > or "algorithms" were back then... never even heard the words... I was like > 9 or so!). And I didn't have the 16K expansion module because my dad > tried to solder it on because we could never get a good contact, but he > fried it in the process, so I was stuck with the 1K (actually, now that I > think about it, it might have been 2K. I'm not sure). > > > We can only hope. Perhaps the prophesied return of Lisp will finally > > happen and people will discover REAL programming, not this Teach > > Yourself The Latest Junk in 24 Hours stuff. Real, worthwhile, > > programming is hard, so if your going to do it, study for it, and > > learn (LEARN I say) to do it well. > > I}}}}}hate}}}}}}}}}}}LISP}}}}}}}}}}}}. > > LISP... ugh. I can't stand any language that contains more parenthesis > per 1,000 lines of code than ACTUAL CODE! :) > > >> Well done, Craig, with restrospect. A simpler designed framework > >> like Struts is exactly the example, the proof, which Simon espouses > >> above. > > > > Yes. Yes. Yes. Thank you Craig. > > I agree... There are probably architecural decisions in Struts I could > complain about, but I think it would quickly become nothing but > nitpicking. Craig did a rather good job IMHO of straddling the line > between a good architecure that is flexible and extensible without making > it too complex. Good job indeed, thank you! > > Frank > > --------------------------------------------------------------------- > To unsubscribe, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] > For additional commands, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] > > -- "You can lead a horse to water but you cannot make it float on its back." ~Dakota Jack~ --------------------------------------------------------------------- To unsubscribe, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] For additional commands, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
