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Languages that refuse to die
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Pete Dashwood
Jun 24, 2015, 9:33:44 PM6/24/15
to
I like the "linguistic equivalent" entries on these... :-)
Regulars here will know that I have sometimes alluded to COBOL as being like
Latin; seems like I may not be the only one who sees the similarity...
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2015-06-23/the-old-coding-languages-that-refuse-to-die
Pete.
--
"I used to write COBOL...now I can do anything."
Regulars here will know that I have sometimes alluded to COBOL as being like
Latin; seems like I may not be the only one who sees the similarity...
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2015-06-23/the-old-coding-languages-that-refuse-to-die
Pete.
--
"I used to write COBOL...now I can do anything."
docd...@panix.com
Jun 25, 2015, 7:44:01 AM6/25/15
to
In article <cv143k...@mid.individual.net>,
--begin quoted text:
... computer scientist Grace Hopper, most famous for creating the term
"bug" when she found a dead insect stuck in a circuit.
--end quoted text
Compare 'Their are for errors in these sentence.'
Rear Admirial Hopper was... well, a Rear Admiral. She is greatly famed
for having done a few things (got a nanosecond?) and the term 'working the
bugs out' can be traced to Thomas Edison.
DD
Pete Dashwood <dash...@removethis.enternet.co.nz> wrote:
>I like the "linguistic equivalent" entries on these... :-)
>
>Regulars here will know that I have sometimes alluded to COBOL as being like
>Latin; seems like I may not be the only one who sees the similarity...
>
>http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2015-06-23/the-old-coding-languages-that-refuse-to-die
From the abovegiven URL:
>I like the "linguistic equivalent" entries on these... :-)
>
>Regulars here will know that I have sometimes alluded to COBOL as being like
>Latin; seems like I may not be the only one who sees the similarity...
>
>http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2015-06-23/the-old-coding-languages-that-refuse-to-die
--begin quoted text:
... computer scientist Grace Hopper, most famous for creating the term
"bug" when she found a dead insect stuck in a circuit.
--end quoted text
Compare 'Their are for errors in these sentence.'
Rear Admirial Hopper was... well, a Rear Admiral. She is greatly famed
for having done a few things (got a nanosecond?) and the term 'working the
bugs out' can be traced to Thomas Edison.
DD
Bill Gunshannon
Jun 25, 2015, 7:59:59 AM6/25/15
to
In article <mmgpi0$l06$1...@reader1.panix.com>,
Believe it or not, military officers all have college degrees and a Rear
Admiral would have advanced degrees at least at the Phd level. Being as
I have never seen a college major of "Rear Admiral" I see no reason why
she could not also have been a computer scientist.
> She is greatly famed
> for having done a few things (got a nanosecond?) and the term 'working the
> bugs out' can be traced to Thomas Edison.
I believe she is credited with the first use of the term in regards to
computers. Of course, anyone who remembers the big East Coast black-
out, lo, those many years ago is probably also familiar with the term
"working the squirrels out". :-)
bill
--
Bill Gunshannon | de-moc-ra-cy (di mok' ra see) n. Three wolves
bill...@cs.scranton.edu | and a sheep voting on what's for dinner.
University of Scranton |
Scranton, Pennsylvania | #include <std.disclaimer.h>
docd...@panix.com () writes:
> In article <cv143k...@mid.individual.net>,
> Pete Dashwood <dash...@removethis.enternet.co.nz> wrote:
>>I like the "linguistic equivalent" entries on these... :-)
>>
>>Regulars here will know that I have sometimes alluded to COBOL as being like
>>Latin; seems like I may not be the only one who sees the similarity...
>>
>>http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2015-06-23/the-old-coding-languages-that-refuse-to-die
>
> From the abovegiven URL:
>
> --begin quoted text:
>
> ... computer scientist Grace Hopper, most famous for creating the term
> "bug" when she found a dead insect stuck in a circuit.
>
> --end quoted text
>
> Compare 'Their are for errors in these sentence.'
>
> Rear Admirial Hopper was... well, a Rear Admiral.
Does being a Rear Admiral in some way preclude being a computer scientist?
> In article <cv143k...@mid.individual.net>,
> Pete Dashwood <dash...@removethis.enternet.co.nz> wrote:
>>I like the "linguistic equivalent" entries on these... :-)
>>
>>Regulars here will know that I have sometimes alluded to COBOL as being like
>>Latin; seems like I may not be the only one who sees the similarity...
>>
>>http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2015-06-23/the-old-coding-languages-that-refuse-to-die
>
> From the abovegiven URL:
>
> --begin quoted text:
>
> ... computer scientist Grace Hopper, most famous for creating the term
> "bug" when she found a dead insect stuck in a circuit.
>
> --end quoted text
>
> Compare 'Their are for errors in these sentence.'
>
> Rear Admirial Hopper was... well, a Rear Admiral.
Believe it or not, military officers all have college degrees and a Rear
Admiral would have advanced degrees at least at the Phd level. Being as
I have never seen a college major of "Rear Admiral" I see no reason why
she could not also have been a computer scientist.
> She is greatly famed
> for having done a few things (got a nanosecond?) and the term 'working the
> bugs out' can be traced to Thomas Edison.
computers. Of course, anyone who remembers the big East Coast black-
out, lo, those many years ago is probably also familiar with the term
"working the squirrels out". :-)
bill
--
Bill Gunshannon | de-moc-ra-cy (di mok' ra see) n. Three wolves
bill...@cs.scranton.edu | and a sheep voting on what's for dinner.
University of Scranton |
Scranton, Pennsylvania | #include <std.disclaimer.h>
Bill Gunshannon
Jun 25, 2015, 8:42:58 AM6/25/15
to
In article <cv143k...@mid.individual.net>,
ALGOL: Of course it couldn;t take input fromt he keyboard in its initial
form. There was no keyboard. There was a card deck and any input data
was included there. You know, like Fortran and COBOL at that time.
COBOL: Still taught in schools? That would be a rare occurance. Trust
me, I watched it dissappear from curricula. mention of Y2K is just using
sound-bites to sell press. Y2K was the most over-sold non-problem in
history. But I do agree with the last part of that paragraph. There are
a lot of jobs still out there, they are not going away and some of them
pay very well. "Church Latin" A good choice. Mot on that in a minute.
PL/I: Don;t know that it was intended suplant COBOL and Fotran, at least
not at IBM who has been one of the strongest advocates of keeping all these
languages going. UNISYS, too. Maybe it's a mainframe thing? :-) I don't
get the resource hog part. COBOL and Fortran (as usually written) are
much bigger resource hogs, as I learned from experience fixing other people's
programs. I have seen OSes that were written in PL/I that were concise,
efficient and with very clear source code. "Old Church Slavinic" These
two were interesting choices for someone with my background. You see, other
than Comp Sci and German my degree also includes a concentration in Theology.
Based on my considerable research (as this factor of Theology is one of
my real interests) the abandonment of Church Latin and Old Church Slavonic
has had some rather devastating impacts, sociologically, on both the
Western adn Eastern Rites of the Catholic Church. And a similar impact
on the Orthodox who held onto Slavonic a bit longer. The comparison is
very accurate, IMHO.
PASCAL: Not only used for teaching, but designed for it. Too bad people
just couldn't accept that fact. I can think of no place that uses it for
teaching today and can't imagine how you would teach OO with Pascal. Oh,
wait, people think Delphi is Pascal. When will they ever learn to change
the name once the language morphs that much. "Esperanto" Undoubtedly
for the later incantation. Tried to be everything to everybody and ended
out being nothing to nobody.
LISP: What can I say. Of all the languages I have learned this one
makes the least sense. Maybe it's a right-brain/left-brain thing. :-)
APL: Now there's a classic. Used to be the primary teaching language
at Marist College in, you guessed it, Poughkeepsie, NY. While it did
not require "Greek letters and obscure symbols, and thus a special
keyboard" they did make it easier to program and understand programs.
Those symbols were very meaningful to mathematicians. Of course, I
know of companies that still work in APL and one locally has a financials
program that is used widely in the Wall Street district of NYC. One of
my students interned there a coupls of summers while attending here.
He had no problem learning it and enjoyed his internships.
FORTRAN: FORTRAN was not like any english I ever saw. But then, that
may have been because most of it was written by engineers and scientists.
It was often fun working on these programs long after the person who
actually wrote them was no longer around. But it could be done and I
would gladly work on FORTRAN again given the opportunity.
LOGO: Another concept avaiable before the world (well, at least the
industry) was ready for it. There was much more to it than "turtle-
graphics". There was also "The Berkeley Floor Turtle" which would
have interested children much more but being tethered to the computer
interfered with its ability to move. I am hoping to try to revive this
by writing an interface to allow Berkeley Logo to control a Lego
Mindstorms Robot "Floor Turtle". We shall see.
ADA: Can't say that anyone was "the Inventor". It was a committee
project fropm the beginning started at the bequest of the US Air Force.
Its success 9and i say that with tongue firmly in cheek) can best be
measured that when the project was done and Ada was a product the
government mandated its use and the Air Force soundly refused and
went on using Jovial at Wright-Pat. I worked with it as a government
contractor before coming to the University and when I got here, i saw
it supplant Pascal as the first teaching language. I later received
emails from former students compalining about that because while it
was being sold here as "the wave of the future" students fount it to
be a major minus rather than a plus when they got that first job.
Well, maybe all but the ones who went to work for Lockheed-Martin. :-)
All in all an interesting article and a pleasant trip down memory lane.
I wonder how many other people here have actually worked with all of
these languages? :-) Oh, by the way, I can think of more that would
have fit into this article. How about SmallTalk. Prolog? And, while
I don't think in any way that it should be eliminated (kinda like how
I feel about COBOL) what about MUMPS/ANSI-M? :-)
bill
PS. I should probably mention now that for good or bad, my presence here
will likely decrease. Tomorrow is my last day at the University and I have
very limited INTERNET access at home so I likely won't be reading USENET
everyday anymore. It's been fun. Great bunch of professionals here and
I will miss the lively banter.
"Pete Dashwood" <dash...@removethis.enternet.co.nz> writes:
> I like the "linguistic equivalent" entries on these... :-)
>
> Regulars here will know that I have sometimes alluded to COBOL as being like
> Latin; seems like I may not be the only one who sees the similarity...
>
> http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2015-06-23/the-old-coding-languages-that-refuse-to-die
A very interesting article. Lets decompose it a bit.
> I like the "linguistic equivalent" entries on these... :-)
>
> Regulars here will know that I have sometimes alluded to COBOL as being like
> Latin; seems like I may not be the only one who sees the similarity...
>
> http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2015-06-23/the-old-coding-languages-that-refuse-to-die
ALGOL: Of course it couldn;t take input fromt he keyboard in its initial
form. There was no keyboard. There was a card deck and any input data
was included there. You know, like Fortran and COBOL at that time.
COBOL: Still taught in schools? That would be a rare occurance. Trust
me, I watched it dissappear from curricula. mention of Y2K is just using
sound-bites to sell press. Y2K was the most over-sold non-problem in
history. But I do agree with the last part of that paragraph. There are
a lot of jobs still out there, they are not going away and some of them
pay very well. "Church Latin" A good choice. Mot on that in a minute.
PL/I: Don;t know that it was intended suplant COBOL and Fotran, at least
not at IBM who has been one of the strongest advocates of keeping all these
languages going. UNISYS, too. Maybe it's a mainframe thing? :-) I don't
get the resource hog part. COBOL and Fortran (as usually written) are
much bigger resource hogs, as I learned from experience fixing other people's
programs. I have seen OSes that were written in PL/I that were concise,
efficient and with very clear source code. "Old Church Slavinic" These
two were interesting choices for someone with my background. You see, other
than Comp Sci and German my degree also includes a concentration in Theology.
Based on my considerable research (as this factor of Theology is one of
my real interests) the abandonment of Church Latin and Old Church Slavonic
has had some rather devastating impacts, sociologically, on both the
Western adn Eastern Rites of the Catholic Church. And a similar impact
on the Orthodox who held onto Slavonic a bit longer. The comparison is
very accurate, IMHO.
PASCAL: Not only used for teaching, but designed for it. Too bad people
just couldn't accept that fact. I can think of no place that uses it for
teaching today and can't imagine how you would teach OO with Pascal. Oh,
wait, people think Delphi is Pascal. When will they ever learn to change
the name once the language morphs that much. "Esperanto" Undoubtedly
for the later incantation. Tried to be everything to everybody and ended
out being nothing to nobody.
LISP: What can I say. Of all the languages I have learned this one
makes the least sense. Maybe it's a right-brain/left-brain thing. :-)
APL: Now there's a classic. Used to be the primary teaching language
at Marist College in, you guessed it, Poughkeepsie, NY. While it did
not require "Greek letters and obscure symbols, and thus a special
keyboard" they did make it easier to program and understand programs.
Those symbols were very meaningful to mathematicians. Of course, I
know of companies that still work in APL and one locally has a financials
program that is used widely in the Wall Street district of NYC. One of
my students interned there a coupls of summers while attending here.
He had no problem learning it and enjoyed his internships.
FORTRAN: FORTRAN was not like any english I ever saw. But then, that
may have been because most of it was written by engineers and scientists.
It was often fun working on these programs long after the person who
actually wrote them was no longer around. But it could be done and I
would gladly work on FORTRAN again given the opportunity.
LOGO: Another concept avaiable before the world (well, at least the
industry) was ready for it. There was much more to it than "turtle-
graphics". There was also "The Berkeley Floor Turtle" which would
have interested children much more but being tethered to the computer
interfered with its ability to move. I am hoping to try to revive this
by writing an interface to allow Berkeley Logo to control a Lego
Mindstorms Robot "Floor Turtle". We shall see.
ADA: Can't say that anyone was "the Inventor". It was a committee
project fropm the beginning started at the bequest of the US Air Force.
Its success 9and i say that with tongue firmly in cheek) can best be
measured that when the project was done and Ada was a product the
government mandated its use and the Air Force soundly refused and
went on using Jovial at Wright-Pat. I worked with it as a government
contractor before coming to the University and when I got here, i saw
it supplant Pascal as the first teaching language. I later received
emails from former students compalining about that because while it
was being sold here as "the wave of the future" students fount it to
be a major minus rather than a plus when they got that first job.
Well, maybe all but the ones who went to work for Lockheed-Martin. :-)
All in all an interesting article and a pleasant trip down memory lane.
I wonder how many other people here have actually worked with all of
these languages? :-) Oh, by the way, I can think of more that would
have fit into this article. How about SmallTalk. Prolog? And, while
I don't think in any way that it should be eliminated (kinda like how
I feel about COBOL) what about MUMPS/ANSI-M? :-)
bill
PS. I should probably mention now that for good or bad, my presence here
will likely decrease. Tomorrow is my last day at the University and I have
very limited INTERNET access at home so I likely won't be reading USENET
everyday anymore. It's been fun. Great bunch of professionals here and
I will miss the lively banter.
docd...@panix.com
Jun 25, 2015, 9:47:59 AM6/25/15
to
In article <cv28ps...@mid.individual.net>,
there are similar criteria for being a computer scientist they might be
worthy examining.
>Believe it or not, military officers all have college degrees and a Rear
>Admiral would have advanced degrees at least at the Phd level. Being as
>I have never seen a college major of "Rear Admiral" I see no reason why
>she could not also have been a computer scientist.
This might reflect more the quality of vision and less that of earned
appellations. She's buried in Arlington.
>
>> She is greatly famed
>> for having done a few things (got a nanosecond?) and the term 'working the
>> bugs out' can be traced to Thomas Edison.
>
>I believe she is credited with the first use of the term in regards to
>computers.
Not in the quoted text, she isn't. Their are for errors in this sentence.
DD
Bill Gunshannon <bill...@cs.uofs.edu> wrote:
>In article <mmgpi0$l06$1...@reader1.panix.com>,
> docd...@panix.com () writes:
>> In article <cv143k...@mid.individual.net>,
>> Pete Dashwood <dash...@removethis.enternet.co.nz> wrote:
>>>I like the "linguistic equivalent" entries on these... :-)
>>>
>>>Regulars here will know that I have sometimes alluded to COBOL as being like
>>>Latin; seems like I may not be the only one who sees the similarity...
>>>
>>>http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2015-06-23/the-old-coding-languages-that-refuse-to-die
>>
>> From the abovegiven URL:
>>
>> --begin quoted text:
>>
>> ... computer scientist Grace Hopper, most famous for creating the term
>> "bug" when she found a dead insect stuck in a circuit.
>>
>> --end quoted text
>>
>> Compare 'Their are for errors in these sentence.'
>>
>> Rear Admirial Hopper was... well, a Rear Admiral.
>
>Does being a Rear Admiral in some way preclude being a computer scientist?
Being a Rear Admiral indicates a verifiable rank at time of discharge. If
>In article <mmgpi0$l06$1...@reader1.panix.com>,
> docd...@panix.com () writes:
>> In article <cv143k...@mid.individual.net>,
>> Pete Dashwood <dash...@removethis.enternet.co.nz> wrote:
>>>I like the "linguistic equivalent" entries on these... :-)
>>>
>>>Regulars here will know that I have sometimes alluded to COBOL as being like
>>>Latin; seems like I may not be the only one who sees the similarity...
>>>
>>>http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2015-06-23/the-old-coding-languages-that-refuse-to-die
>>
>> From the abovegiven URL:
>>
>> --begin quoted text:
>>
>> ... computer scientist Grace Hopper, most famous for creating the term
>> "bug" when she found a dead insect stuck in a circuit.
>>
>> --end quoted text
>>
>> Compare 'Their are for errors in these sentence.'
>>
>> Rear Admirial Hopper was... well, a Rear Admiral.
>
>Does being a Rear Admiral in some way preclude being a computer scientist?
there are similar criteria for being a computer scientist they might be
worthy examining.
>Believe it or not, military officers all have college degrees and a Rear
>Admiral would have advanced degrees at least at the Phd level. Being as
>I have never seen a college major of "Rear Admiral" I see no reason why
>she could not also have been a computer scientist.
appellations. She's buried in Arlington.
>
>> She is greatly famed
>> for having done a few things (got a nanosecond?) and the term 'working the
>> bugs out' can be traced to Thomas Edison.
>
>I believe she is credited with the first use of the term in regards to
>computers.
DD
docd...@panix.com
Jun 25, 2015, 9:50:14 AM6/25/15
to
In article <cv2bag...@mid.individual.net>,
[snip]
>PS. I should probably mention now that for good or bad, my presence here
>will likely decrease. Tomorrow is my last day at the University and I have
>very limited INTERNET access at home so I likely won't be reading USENET
>everyday anymore. It's been fun. Great bunch of professionals here and
>I will miss the lively banter.
Take care, stay well and go in good health, old man.
DD
Bill Gunshannon <bill...@cs.uofs.edu> wrote:
>In article <cv143k...@mid.individual.net>,
> "Pete Dashwood" <dash...@removethis.enternet.co.nz> writes:
>> I like the "linguistic equivalent" entries on these... :-)
>>
>> Regulars here will know that I have sometimes alluded to COBOL as being like
>> Latin; seems like I may not be the only one who sees the similarity...
>>
>>
>http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2015-06-23/the-old-coding-languages-that-refuse-to-die
>
>A very interesting article. Lets decompose it a bit.
Decompose it? But it ain't even dead!
>In article <cv143k...@mid.individual.net>,
> "Pete Dashwood" <dash...@removethis.enternet.co.nz> writes:
>> I like the "linguistic equivalent" entries on these... :-)
>>
>> Regulars here will know that I have sometimes alluded to COBOL as being like
>> Latin; seems like I may not be the only one who sees the similarity...
>>
>>
>http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2015-06-23/the-old-coding-languages-that-refuse-to-die
>
>A very interesting article. Lets decompose it a bit.
[snip]
>PS. I should probably mention now that for good or bad, my presence here
>will likely decrease. Tomorrow is my last day at the University and I have
>very limited INTERNET access at home so I likely won't be reading USENET
>everyday anymore. It's been fun. Great bunch of professionals here and
>I will miss the lively banter.
DD
Bill Gunshannon
Jun 25, 2015, 10:16:26 AM6/25/15
to
In article <mmh0qd$lf2$1...@reader1.panix.com>,
in Mathematics from Yale in 1934 which makes sense as the first documented
Computer Science Degree Course wasn't until 1953 in England in not until
1962 in the US.
>
>>Believe it or not, military officers all have college degrees and a Rear
>>Admiral would have advanced degrees at least at the Phd level. Being as
>>I have never seen a college major of "Rear Admiral" I see no reason why
>>she could not also have been a computer scientist.
>
> This might reflect more the quality of vision and less that of earned
> appellations. She's buried in Arlington.
And, like the tone of your comment about her rank this seems to imply burial
at Arlington precludes being a computer scientist.
>
>>
>>> She is greatly famed
>>> for having done a few things (got a nanosecond?) and the term 'working the
>>> bugs out' can be traced to Thomas Edison.
>>
>>I believe she is credited with the first use of the term in regards to
>>computers.
>
> Not in the quoted text, she isn't. Their are for errors in this sentence.
You must be a frustrated english teacher. It's a newspaper article, not
a Phd thesis. :-)
And, as should be clear from my other comments, there are other likely
mistakes in some of the claims made as factual.
docd...@panix.com () writes:
> In article <cv28ps...@mid.individual.net>,
> Bill Gunshannon <bill...@cs.uofs.edu> wrote:
>>In article <mmgpi0$l06$1...@reader1.panix.com>,
>> docd...@panix.com () writes:
>>> In article <cv143k...@mid.individual.net>,
>>> Pete Dashwood <dash...@removethis.enternet.co.nz> wrote:
>>>>I like the "linguistic equivalent" entries on these... :-)
>>>>
>>>>Regulars here will know that I have sometimes alluded to COBOL as being like
>>>>Latin; seems like I may not be the only one who sees the similarity...
>>>>
>>>>http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2015-06-23/the-old-coding-languages-that-refuse-to-die
>>>
>>> From the abovegiven URL:
>>>
>>> --begin quoted text:
>>>
>>> ... computer scientist Grace Hopper, most famous for creating the term
>>> "bug" when she found a dead insect stuck in a circuit.
>>>
>>> --end quoted text
>>>
>>> Compare 'Their are for errors in these sentence.'
>>>
>>> Rear Admirial Hopper was... well, a Rear Admiral.
>>
>>Does being a Rear Admiral in some way preclude being a computer scientist?
>
> Being a Rear Admiral indicates a verifiable rank at time of discharge. If
> there are similar criteria for being a computer scientist they might be
> worthy examining.
As with her rank, her education is also a documented item. She had Phd
> In article <cv28ps...@mid.individual.net>,
> Bill Gunshannon <bill...@cs.uofs.edu> wrote:
>>In article <mmgpi0$l06$1...@reader1.panix.com>,
>> docd...@panix.com () writes:
>>> In article <cv143k...@mid.individual.net>,
>>> Pete Dashwood <dash...@removethis.enternet.co.nz> wrote:
>>>>I like the "linguistic equivalent" entries on these... :-)
>>>>
>>>>Regulars here will know that I have sometimes alluded to COBOL as being like
>>>>Latin; seems like I may not be the only one who sees the similarity...
>>>>
>>>>http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2015-06-23/the-old-coding-languages-that-refuse-to-die
>>>
>>> From the abovegiven URL:
>>>
>>> --begin quoted text:
>>>
>>> ... computer scientist Grace Hopper, most famous for creating the term
>>> "bug" when she found a dead insect stuck in a circuit.
>>>
>>> --end quoted text
>>>
>>> Compare 'Their are for errors in these sentence.'
>>>
>>> Rear Admirial Hopper was... well, a Rear Admiral.
>>
>>Does being a Rear Admiral in some way preclude being a computer scientist?
>
> Being a Rear Admiral indicates a verifiable rank at time of discharge. If
> there are similar criteria for being a computer scientist they might be
> worthy examining.
in Mathematics from Yale in 1934 which makes sense as the first documented
Computer Science Degree Course wasn't until 1953 in England in not until
1962 in the US.
>
>>Believe it or not, military officers all have college degrees and a Rear
>>Admiral would have advanced degrees at least at the Phd level. Being as
>>I have never seen a college major of "Rear Admiral" I see no reason why
>>she could not also have been a computer scientist.
>
> This might reflect more the quality of vision and less that of earned
> appellations. She's buried in Arlington.
at Arlington precludes being a computer scientist.
>
>>
>>> She is greatly famed
>>> for having done a few things (got a nanosecond?) and the term 'working the
>>> bugs out' can be traced to Thomas Edison.
>>
>>I believe she is credited with the first use of the term in regards to
>>computers.
>
> Not in the quoted text, she isn't. Their are for errors in this sentence.
a Phd thesis. :-)
And, as should be clear from my other comments, there are other likely
mistakes in some of the claims made as factual.
Bill Gunshannon
Jun 25, 2015, 10:18:45 AM6/25/15
to
In article <mmh0ul$t3o$1...@reader1.panix.com>,
Amazing how we can say things and not see how others might read them.
>
> [snip]
>
>>PS. I should probably mention now that for good or bad, my presence here
>>will likely decrease. Tomorrow is my last day at the University and I have
>>very limited INTERNET access at home so I likely won't be reading USENET
>>everyday anymore. It's been fun. Great bunch of professionals here and
>>I will miss the lively banter.
>
> Take care, stay well and go in good health, old man.
>
Thank you. I will certainly try.
bill
docd...@panix.com () writes:
> In article <cv2bag...@mid.individual.net>,
> Bill Gunshannon <bill...@cs.uofs.edu> wrote:
>>In article <cv143k...@mid.individual.net>,
>> "Pete Dashwood" <dash...@removethis.enternet.co.nz> writes:
>>> I like the "linguistic equivalent" entries on these... :-)
>>>
>>> Regulars here will know that I have sometimes alluded to COBOL as being like
>>> Latin; seems like I may not be the only one who sees the similarity...
>>>
>>>
>>http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2015-06-23/the-old-coding-languages-that-refuse-to-die
>>
>>A very interesting article. Lets decompose it a bit.
>
> Decompose it? But it ain't even dead!
And, neither are the languages. :-)
> In article <cv2bag...@mid.individual.net>,
> Bill Gunshannon <bill...@cs.uofs.edu> wrote:
>>In article <cv143k...@mid.individual.net>,
>> "Pete Dashwood" <dash...@removethis.enternet.co.nz> writes:
>>> I like the "linguistic equivalent" entries on these... :-)
>>>
>>> Regulars here will know that I have sometimes alluded to COBOL as being like
>>> Latin; seems like I may not be the only one who sees the similarity...
>>>
>>>
>>http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2015-06-23/the-old-coding-languages-that-refuse-to-die
>>
>>A very interesting article. Lets decompose it a bit.
>
> Decompose it? But it ain't even dead!
Amazing how we can say things and not see how others might read them.
>
> [snip]
>
>>PS. I should probably mention now that for good or bad, my presence here
>>will likely decrease. Tomorrow is my last day at the University and I have
>>very limited INTERNET access at home so I likely won't be reading USENET
>>everyday anymore. It's been fun. Great bunch of professionals here and
>>I will miss the lively banter.
>
> Take care, stay well and go in good health, old man.
>
bill
Hans Jürgen Igel
Jun 25, 2015, 10:57:33 AM6/25/15
to
Regards Hans
Robert Wessel
Jun 25, 2015, 4:51:15 PM6/25/15
to
On 25 Jun 2015 11:59:56 GMT, bi...@server3.cs.uofs.edu (Bill
No, she's not. The term was in common use long before Hopper (or
someone on her team) found an actual moth stuck in a relay, which she
taped into the project logbook and annotated as "First actual case of
bug being found".
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grace_Hopper#/media/File:H96566k.jpg
someone on her team) found an actual moth stuck in a relay, which she
taped into the project logbook and annotated as "First actual case of
bug being found".
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grace_Hopper#/media/File:H96566k.jpg
robin....@gmail.com
Jun 25, 2015, 10:32:38 PM6/25/15
to
On Thursday, June 25, 2015 at 10:42:58 PM UTC+10, Bill Gunshannon wrote:
> In article <c.no...@mid.individual.net>,
The Friden Flexowriter was endowed with many (most?) of the special
characters, including a small '10" for exponents.
Like other languages of the time, data input was usually taken from the
same media as the source.
> You know, like Fortran and COBOL at that time.
>
>
> COBOL: Still taught in schools? That would be a rare occurance. Trust
> me, I watched it dissappear from curricula. mention of Y2K is just using
> sound-bites to sell press. Y2K was the most over-sold non-problem in
> history. But I do agree with the last part of that paragraph. There are
> a lot of jobs still out there, they are not going away and some of them
> pay very well. "Church Latin" A good choice. Mot on that in a minute.
>
> PL/I: Don;t know that it was intended suplant COBOL and Fotran, at least
> not at IBM who has been one of the strongest advocates of keeping all these
> languages going. UNISYS, too. Maybe it's a mainframe thing? :-)
Has -- for a very long time -- been available on the PC.
The dates in the article are wrong. PL/I's been around since 1966.
A far more useful language than FORTRAN etc., it contains the best parts
of Algol, COBOL, and FORTRAN, plus a lot more.
> In article <c.no...@mid.individual.net>,
> "Pete Dashwood" <dash...@removethis.enternet.co.nz> writes:
> > I like the "linguistic equivalent" entries on these... :-)
> >
> > Regulars here will know that I have sometimes alluded to COBOL as being like
> > Latin; seems like I may not be the only one who sees the similarity...
> >
> > http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2015-06-23/the-old-coding-languages-that-refuse-to-die
>
> A very interesting article. Lets decompose it a bit.
>
> ALGOL: Of course it couldn;t take input fromt he keyboard in its initial
> form. There was no keyboard. There was a card deck and any input data
> was included there.
Source input also was from paper tape.
> > I like the "linguistic equivalent" entries on these... :-)
> >
> > Regulars here will know that I have sometimes alluded to COBOL as being like
> > Latin; seems like I may not be the only one who sees the similarity...
> >
> > http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2015-06-23/the-old-coding-languages-that-refuse-to-die
>
> A very interesting article. Lets decompose it a bit.
>
> ALGOL: Of course it couldn;t take input fromt he keyboard in its initial
> form. There was no keyboard. There was a card deck and any input data
> was included there.
The Friden Flexowriter was endowed with many (most?) of the special
characters, including a small '10" for exponents.
Like other languages of the time, data input was usually taken from the
same media as the source.
> You know, like Fortran and COBOL at that time.
>
>
> COBOL: Still taught in schools? That would be a rare occurance. Trust
> me, I watched it dissappear from curricula. mention of Y2K is just using
> sound-bites to sell press. Y2K was the most over-sold non-problem in
> history. But I do agree with the last part of that paragraph. There are
> a lot of jobs still out there, they are not going away and some of them
> pay very well. "Church Latin" A good choice. Mot on that in a minute.
>
> PL/I: Don;t know that it was intended suplant COBOL and Fotran, at least
> not at IBM who has been one of the strongest advocates of keeping all these
> languages going. UNISYS, too. Maybe it's a mainframe thing? :-)
The dates in the article are wrong. PL/I's been around since 1966.
A far more useful language than FORTRAN etc., it contains the best parts
of Algol, COBOL, and FORTRAN, plus a lot more.
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