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Integers are real numbers. Perhaps they are arguing with imaginary programmers.
by yonder 8y ago
Integers are real numbers. Perhaps they are arguing with imaginary programmers.
- Crinus 8y agoI think this is a reference to an old joke about "God is Real, unless declared as Integer" since in Pascal Real and Integer are data types.
- alephnil 8y agoThe joke is actually about FORTRAN, where variables don't have to be declared, and is implicitly declared as Integer if it's first letter is in the range I-N and otherwise implicitly declared as the type Real (usually 32-bit floating point). Thus the variable GOD will implicitly be of type real. Pascal have the same type names, but does not allow implicit declarations.
- Crinus 8y agoOh, interesting. I suspected it might be from an older language, but i expected Algol, not FORTRAN :-P. Personally i associate it with Pascal because i first saw it on an IRC channel's topic back in the mid-90s :-).
- mcguire 8y agoIf it's a stupid programming joke, you can probably blame it on FORTRAN. COBOL programmers don't have senses of humor.