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> instructions that were clearly invented in the typewriter era and then hoisted, kicking and screaming, into the digital age with nary a change Based on exper
by ethbr0 5y ago
> instructions that were clearly invented in the typewriter era and then hoisted, kicking and screaming, into the digital age with nary a change
Based on experience, any time I see a static number of fields of a specific type on a digital record, I assume it's because that's how many blanks there were on the preceding paper form.
- spookthesunset 5y agoYou mean the paper form with 10 “blanks” for your address? Thereby ensuring the address would never fit in the space required?
- ethbr0 5y agoI mean the paper form that assume no more than X things ever need to be in a record. I.e. ICD
- mickeyp 5y agoIt's also because COBOL and languages of that era had fixed widths for most of the "records" they had, for good reasons that many modern programmers are rediscovering every day...