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The Story of Mel was likely in direct response to "Real programmers don't use PASCAL", or potentially another very similar "Real Programmers" writing.
by cestith 4y ago
The Story of Mel was likely in direct response to "Real programmers don't use PASCAL", or potentially another very similar "Real Programmers" writing.
- egypturnash 4y agoA recent article devoted to the macho side of programming made the bald and unvarnished statement: Real Programmers write in FORTRAN. - the first lines of The Story Of Mel
- cestith 4y agoThat line was included in more than one post. There are also multiple posts from that time period which said exactly the opposite. It was an ongoing joke, raised to somewhat of an art form. https://www.multicians.org/thvv/realprogs.html https://www.multicians.org/thvv/realprogs.html http://www.bernstein-plus-sons.com/RPDEQ.html http://www.bernstein-plus-sons.com/RPDEQ.html https://www.ecb.torontomu.ca/~elf/hack/realmen.html https://www.ecb.torontomu.ca/~elf/hack/realmen.html https://web.archive.org/web/20080419225755/http://www.suslik.org/Humour/Computer/Langs/real_prog2.html https://web.archive.org/web/20080419225755/http://www.suslik... Old magazines, BBSes, Usenet, and mailing lists are full of this sort of humor. https://www.mipmip.org/tidbits/project.html https://www.mipmip.org/tidbits/project.html
- Arcorann 4y agoThe original version of the post [1] cited the article "Real programmers Don't Use PASCAL" by name. For some reason it disappeared in the later versions. [1] https://cboh.org/mel.txt https://cboh.org/mel.txt
- cestith 4y agoThank you. I thought I remembered that from elsewhere, and was a little surprised to see the oblique reference to one of the many similar writings from the time.