Re: Just an observation -- MIDRANGE-L

Gotta start someplace...telepathy won't work.

On Wed, Apr 16, 2008 at 11:45 AM, Trevor Perry <trevor@xxxxxxxxxx> wrote:

Joe,

Doesn't this message itself constitute an impurity?

Trevor

On 4/16/08 11:28 AM, "Joe Pluta" <joepluta@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:

> I remember back when I was starting out programming (back in the early
> 40s) and how I loved learning new languages. I started out with RPG,
> and then learned EDL (for the Series/1) and you couldn't stop me from
> messing around with the operating system (in the Series/1, the operating
> system was written in the primary HLL for the box; it was very cool).
> Next I started using assembly language and then Pascal and C. Note that
> I had been introduced to all these languages previously, along with
> standard CS 101 languages like Fortran and BASIC. But this was real
> programming, and I ate it up.
>
> Back then, it wasn't about staking turf for a specific language or OS.
> In fact, most programmers didn't argue about such things. There were a
> few uber-nerds who argued about the superiority of the Z80 instruction
> set, or CP/M vs PC-DOS, but those were few and far between. Not that
> they weren't vehement; one of my favorite ongoing arguments was the
> raging debate between Pascal and C syntax. In Pascal, the equality
> operator is one character ("=") and the assignment operator is two
> (":="). As you know, in C and its derivatives, assignment is one
> character ("=") and equality is two ("=="). There would be screaming
> matches about this, with the C advocates actually doing statistical
> analysis of code to prove that there were more assignments than
> comparisons, and thus C was more productive.
>
> Those people were considered... eccentric. They were the guys who not
> only actually owned their own Star Trek uniform, but considered it
> appropriate business attire. Meanwhile, the rest of us were just trying
> to figure out how to get the stupid cash register to answer the modem,
> or how to insert TTDs into a bisync data stream.
>
> Nowadays, these sorts of arguments seem to be the norm. Rather than
> talking about solutions, discussion forums consistently devolve into
> arguments about syntax or the "rightness" of SQL vs. native or any of a
> million other issues that aren't really germane to solving business
> problems. Thankfully David manages to keep these lists the best in the
> Infoverse, but we're not immune.
>
> I don't know how to fix it. I have an idea, but it would take way more
> work than any one person could do. I just wonder whether it's worth it
> to try and create a medium where the discussion is entirely about
> business solutions. No threads about the name of the machine, or the
> impending death of RPG, or how ILE is better/worse than .Net, or indeed
> any sort of opinion-based discussion. Instead, just a pure,
> unadulterated focus on problems and solutions.
>
> Joe
>

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