tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4195135246107166251.post1297815584959918832..comments2023-05-08T07:04:09.641-07:00Comments on Neopythonic: Before PythonGuido van Rossumhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12821714508588242516noreply@blogger.comBlogger23125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4195135246107166251.post-46062126109398902062015-02-20T02:14:13.334-08:002015-02-20T02:14:13.334-08:00> But punch cards are the reason that some soft...> But punch cards are the reason that some software still limits you (or just defaults) to 80 characters per line.<br /><br />I am not absolutely certain about it, but I believe there are many good<br />reasons why to limit the width of the column. Classical typesetters (see https://www.tug.org/TUGboat/tb19-1/tb58tay1.pdf for a lot of background) discovered the easiest way to read a text is if it is broken to columns around 60 characters wide on average. Yes, it is possible, that with programming code, which has way more white space the column can be a bit wider, but I don't much above 80 columns brings more in terms of readability.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4195135246107166251.post-14012594045894018262012-01-18T13:21:00.387-08:002012-01-18T13:21:00.387-08:00Re: my principles for sharing. I like sharing code...Re: my principles for sharing. I like sharing code, because I like my code to be useful. I don't care about being paid for my code, since I wrote it for my own satisfaction. I don't care much(*) about others making commercial use of my code. I do care about others claiming they wrote it.<br /><br />(*) I would care if someone took what I wrote, added no value of their own, and made a million bucks selling it without revealing they were just repackaging. But that's pretty unlikely.Guido van Rossumhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/12821714508588242516noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4195135246107166251.post-34333318763675170182012-01-18T08:43:40.717-08:002012-01-18T08:43:40.717-08:00ha the old days, got my Sinclair at age of 15 and ...ha the old days, got my Sinclair at age of 15 and never stop since, learn Assembler and program games like a maniac! them the normal several flavours of Basic passing by all kinds of Xbase languages, using Pascal and then got caught in the windows tools and become addict on these days .Net C# is where I live :), to be very honest my best bet was to learn assembler and code a lot with it, every single language after that were dam easy ;)retnzhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/04528848429533924991noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4195135246107166251.post-23066649572357721132012-01-18T07:19:21.373-08:002012-01-18T07:19:21.373-08:00Guido, the CodeProject Daily Developer News issue ...Guido, the CodeProject Daily Developer News issue for Jan. 17, 2012 linked to your article.RHodnetthttps://www.blogger.com/profile/03807259015910927031noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4195135246107166251.post-29302880737635611462012-01-17T10:57:45.118-08:002012-01-17T10:57:45.118-08:00Um, so where does this flurry of comments suddenly...Um, so where does this flurry of comments suddenly come from? Did someone post a link to this page on a list of old-timers? :-)Guido van Rossumhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/12821714508588242516noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4195135246107166251.post-6492574977948902852012-01-17T10:44:01.790-08:002012-01-17T10:44:01.790-08:00Ah yeah.. those where the times. Well, I started w...Ah yeah.. those where the times. Well, I started with programming 29 years ago, using Basic on a Vic20. Later assembler on the (amazing, I must say) CBM Amiga already been through the Amstrad and Atari and Spectravideo SVI328 (the latter was pretty cool too btw).<br /><br />I started to develop something on the Amiga which resemble the .net platform today (I posted about this in the Amiga news group at the time, beginning of the 90's which can verify it), but never completed it. Today I'm stuck with.. um, .net, on Windows. <br /><br />Fortunately I do other things to such as graphics and 3D animation. <br /><br />You kind of smile looking at all the new terms and techniques of today knowing how things actually works under the "hood". There lies a lot of power in that. :-)Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4195135246107166251.post-40958834102777404882012-01-17T10:43:25.130-08:002012-01-17T10:43:25.130-08:00Ah yeah.. those where the times. Well, I started w...Ah yeah.. those where the times. Well, I started with programming 29 years ago, using Basic on a Vic20. Later assembler on the (amazing, I must say) CBM Amiga already been through the Amstrad and Atari and Spectravideo SVI328 (the latter was pretty cool too btw).<br /><br />I started to develop something on the Amiga which resemble the .net platform today (I posted about this in the Amiga news group at the time, beginning of the 90's which can verify it), but never completed it. Today I'm stuck with.. um, .net, on Windows. <br /><br />Fortunately I do other things to such as graphics and 3D animation. <br /><br />You kind of smile looking at all the new terms and techniques of today knowing how things actually works under the "hood". There lies a lot of power in that. :-)Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4195135246107166251.post-75380266475504424252012-01-17T07:34:38.148-08:002012-01-17T07:34:38.148-08:00It is a good thing that you find reason for being ...It is a good thing that you find reason for being so optimistic for tomorrow's weltanschauung in terms of engineering, as applied to programming, because I really still have my doubts.<br /><br />Having the basis for ingenuity is a great thing for kids, and I can't really ever see that going away, but I really think that programming as a discipline is becoming more a means to an end rather than an end in and of itself. And, for that reason, you will find less interest in really seeing how things work 'under the hood'.<br /><br />It makes me think of Star Trek:TNG and programming the holodeck. Obviously, these "engineers" are not fooling around with loops and exceptions. But they are still coming up with physics formulas as to how to teleport into a moving starship traveling as light speeds.<br /><br />We shall see.telic_progressionhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/01523087762715990061noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4195135246107166251.post-38036409521454296032012-01-17T06:15:50.485-08:002012-01-17T06:15:50.485-08:00I was born in 1954. My college career, in the US, ...I was born in 1954. My college career, in the US, went a little like yours. My first language was FORTRAN. I was VERY good at FORTRAN. <br /><br />My first academic language (in 1973) was also Algol. We were tasked with writing an Algol compiler IN ALGOL. It was daunting, and I'm not sure I even finished it.<br /><br />I enjoyed programming so much, I became the guy who sat at the "insultant"s desk and told you why your FORTRAN program wasn't working.<br /><br />Then came assembly (PDP-8) and then the world of IBM (COBOL and Assembler.) I was very good at COBOL, and passable at assembler.<br /><br />After several years of COBOL programming, I left programming and became a manager, then a non-IT manager. <br /><br />Now, I'm back in it as a consultant. Things have certainly changed. I don't know what Python is, but I look forward to learning more. It's that or die!<br /><br />JimJimfromIndyhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/11336603278624963805noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4195135246107166251.post-54425423223502483672012-01-17T03:06:19.923-08:002012-01-17T03:06:19.923-08:00I first learnt on punch card equipment (IBM 1965);...I first learnt on punch card equipment (IBM 1965); sorters, tabulators, etc (026 punch, or one manual punch whose name I've forgotten where you needed to know all the combinations and punch by finger pressure). Then following fashion: machine code, assembler, PLI, Pascal, C, C++ (ugh), Java, C#, .... Odd bits of RPG, Lisp, Fortran, Prolog, and even Python on the way. Implementation of our first large relation data store was based partly on the way the sorters and tabulators worked.<br /><br />Stephen ToddStephenhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/00708546705333747128noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4195135246107166251.post-25000300158541170282012-01-17T01:00:05.340-08:002012-01-17T01:00:05.340-08:00I still use FORTRAN today. For numerically demandi...I still use FORTRAN today. For numerically demanding problems it is often 20-30 times faster than Python. I'm not old enough to remember punched cards though !Ianhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/07624518540669133344noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4195135246107166251.post-20804858210634215522012-01-16T23:54:46.170-08:002012-01-16T23:54:46.170-08:00Ahh Happy memories! Born in 1955, my experience in...Ahh Happy memories! Born in 1955, my experience in the UK almost exactly matches yours, except I went from FORTRAN on a KDF9 to Algol 68R - try reading THAT report! - before getting to Algol 60, and then Pascal...<br /><br />MikeMikehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/04698628134219300344noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4195135246107166251.post-43271098750492200162012-01-15T16:43:52.137-08:002012-01-15T16:43:52.137-08:00Could you elaborate on your "principles for s...Could you elaborate on your "principles for sharing" (or link to somewhere if you already have :)?Unknownhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/06990873824069201086noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4195135246107166251.post-90935879949624329602011-07-27T01:59:56.538-07:002011-07-27T01:59:56.538-07:00LIke many CDC mainframe sites, my university used ...LIke many CDC mainframe sites, my university used the ancient and less expensive 026 keypunches which only had about 48 characters available via keys. Although you could produce the remaining 18 characters by "multi-punching" (What? You need more than 64 characters?), it was very tedious to remember the sequences needed to produce the semicolons, colons, and square brackets needed for Algol-60 programs. Fortunately, the CDC compilers allowed alternate representations for these characters: for example, := (colon equals) the assignment operator could be punched as ..= (period period equals). While it simplified the keypunching, it made for really ugly-looking programs. But it worked.Ned Deilyhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/17112379650586333719noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4195135246107166251.post-18234080841053462252011-07-26T18:07:47.582-07:002011-07-26T18:07:47.582-07:00This comment has been removed by the author.VinSwhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/02592832833223595767noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4195135246107166251.post-52824316405109525682011-07-25T16:02:03.393-07:002011-07-25T16:02:03.393-07:00You're apparently a year younger than I; your ...You're apparently a year younger than I; your photo makes you look somewhat younger, making me jealous. ;)<br /><br />I've written several languages, if you'll permit some fairly domain-specific ones. One of the first was an interpreter written in COBOL on an IBM System/3, for what we'd now call a spreadsheet. You'd give it a bunch of cards with cell addresses and formulas, and it would print out a balance sheet. This saved me having to recompile the COBOL every time a number changed, which was a big time saver. If I'd ported it to a PC, I'd have invented VisiCalc!samwysehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/07285049798805286169noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4195135246107166251.post-50102029037543339092011-07-25T15:52:10.387-07:002011-07-25T15:52:10.387-07:00Thanks again from CAPE SF for speaking to our stud...Thanks again from CAPE SF for speaking to our students today! It was great to meet you.<br /><br />It's always cool to learn how different people learned to program. I made a site where you can share your story: <a href="http://ilearnedtoprogram.com" rel="nofollow">ilearnedtoprogram.com</a>Ben Chunhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/06741250809904031803noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4195135246107166251.post-61651683219195986462011-07-25T13:36:20.701-07:002011-07-25T13:36:20.701-07:00Long live the '56-ers!!!
[All right, I'm t...<b>Long live the '56-ers!!!</b><br />[All right, I'm tail end, but...]<br /><br />I certainly used an 029 in college (assembler on a card punch with a bad ribbon was an experience); in high school in NY in '71 we had 029s as well, but I think at least one 026, too (we were writing mostly FORTRAN for an 1130 -- we also used a stripped down PL/I in which ".," was used instead of a semicolon).Artie Goldhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/14766383971406294271noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4195135246107166251.post-18418096616451104462011-07-25T13:01:00.167-07:002011-07-25T13:01:00.167-07:00That's where I think I have a dream job. I sti...That's where I think I have a dream job. I still get to write lots of code!Guido van Rossumhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/12821714508588242516noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4195135246107166251.post-91215796610119354672011-07-25T12:59:13.689-07:002011-07-25T12:59:13.689-07:00Present, HSM, but coding's a small part of the...Present, HSM, but coding's a small part of the job these says. For this onetime math student born in 1956, a nice reminiscence by Guido.John Campbellhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/00366401383995349658noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4195135246107166251.post-54514457602472854332011-07-25T12:45:38.579-07:002011-07-25T12:45:38.579-07:00Yes, 029s were it. I learned how to make autopunch...Yes, 029s were it. I learned how to make autopunch cards. Programming in Fortran 2 for a Univac 1108 in 1966. Time was rationed in seconds per day of use and the turnaround for submitting a card deck, getting your run, picking up the printout, resubmitting meant maybe 3 or 4 runs per day, so you really did contemplate everything on that printout before repunching. I was a teenager and 40 year old professors would be on the next keypunch.Ken Lattahttps://www.blogger.com/profile/13109326458564569849noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4195135246107166251.post-79182015507955642172011-07-25T12:16:36.664-07:002011-07-25T12:16:36.664-07:00I wonder how many of us who have used a key-punch ...I wonder how many of us who have used a key-punch machine (model 029 IBM) are still around and programming? Thanks by the way for Python :)Anonymoushttps://www.blogger.com/profile/03122007227690269066noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4195135246107166251.post-14765765557186066152011-07-25T12:12:19.850-07:002011-07-25T12:12:19.850-07:00Guido--
As one of the Google CAPE instructors in ...Guido--<br /><br />As one of the Google CAPE instructors in Mountain View, I just wanted to thank you for your time today. These kids are smart, hard-working, and playful, and they give me hope for the future. Getting exposure to someone like you who has done amazing things is terrific and inspirational.<br /><br />Regards,<br /><br />Josh PaleyJosh Paleyhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/16800045884411631831noreply@blogger.com