4 ms·
Mel the programmer was a real person
- michael_dorfman 17y agoDid anyone actually doubt he was a real person? Still, it's nice to have his full name.
- jobu 17y agoI've always thought it was an exaggeration based on some truth. Either way, he's definitely a legend. He even has a wiki page: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mel_Kaye http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mel_Kaye
- curtis 17y agoSee also http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/LGP-30 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/LGP-30.
- arethuza 17y agoI did wonder if his name was really Mel - the rest of it sounded entirely plausible. However, that story always reminds me of the chap I used to know who had done some programming with a hand drill...
- 3dFlatLander 17y agoI'd be interested in knowing what became of him--no luck finding anything online.
- Luc 17y agoSome handwritten code by Mel on this page: http://www.bemorehealthy.com/LGP-30Computer/The30.htm http://www.bemorehealthy.com/LGP-30Computer/The30.htm
- techiferous 17y agoThat's why when I take on a new web programming project my first action is to order 10,000 NAND gates.
- jrockway 17y agoThat's just old-fashioned. Even Real Programmers use FPGAs for the first iteration now.
- techiferous 17y agoReal Programmers dope their own silicon.
- notauser 17y agoIf you wish to create a program from scratch you must first create the universe.
- pavelludiq 17y agoThere is definitely room for improvement there http://abstrusegoose.com/244 http://abstrusegoose.com/244 :D
- harshpotatoes 17y agoI love that story, always nice to hear a story is real and not just an abstraction for the many 'real programmers' out there. But who are the modern Mel's? http://www.codemaestro.com/reviews/9 http://www.codemaestro.com/reviews/9
- dondemarco 17y agowhere is Mel now? Are his whereabouts known?
- rick_2047 17y agoI never did get the concept of "real programmer", I mean when it comes to defining a programmer I would go with wikipedia A programmer is someone who writes computer software. The term computer programmer can refer to a specialist in one area of computer programming or to a generalist who writes code for many kinds of software. Now tell me how anyone who does not know how a language or framework works, but can still make computer programs out of it, is not a "real" programmer?
- ableal 17y agoThe link to Bill von Hagen's corroboration is broken; site search yields the right one: http://foldoc.org/pub/misc/MelKaye.txt http://foldoc.org/pub/misc/MelKaye.txt (whv: thanks also for the gripe@ece.cmu.edu years)