3 ms·

This is a paper regarding a survey taken in 1978, with the super-biased sample of people who answer the survey solicitation via a magazine, sample size of ~50,

This is a paper regarding a survey taken in 1978, with the super-biased sample of people who answer the survey solicitation via a magazine, sample size of ~50, everything self-reported/self-assessed. So, a historical curiosity and some possibly-interesting ruminations by the author, not more. IMHO.

Animats 2y ago
Yes. I haven't heard UNIVAC's facility in Blue Bell, PA, mentioned in a very long time. Original BASIC had neither data structures nor scope. So programmers who started with BASIC lacked some key concepts. There was thus a problem at one time with programmers who started in BASIC.
- PaulHoule 2y ago
  I started in BASIC but I'm long past it. I got this pretty quick in a ROM cartridge https://www.cocopedia.com/wiki/index.php/EDTASM%2B https://www.cocopedia.com/wiki/index.php/EDTASM%2B when I was still saving programs on tape. Assembly lacks many of the things BASIC lacks though. Wrote my own program that would take BASIC source code without line numbers and with structured control structures and compile to BASIC. Also got PASCAL and C compilers, wrote a lot of Turbo Pascal for the PC in the late 1980s, got into the C habit when I went to college, picked up Java in my PhD program and I've been coding it ever since.
- readthenotes1 2y ago
  "There was thus a problem at one time with programmers who started in BASIC" and who never bothered to learn the affordances, constraints, and idioms of their new language.
PaulHoule 2y ago
I've always taken a particular joy in "Writing code like Language A in Language B" I like Java as a host language to do things like: Write numerical codes in FORTRAN style, allocating a few big arrays at the beginning and not pressuring the garbage collector. This is how I'd write an FFT, matrix inversion, or something like that. Write programs with very few class definitions but a large number of static methods. (Like any non-OO languages, but static methods can go nicely with a few well chosen classes you make instances of) Write static methods that take instances of "Object" as a parameter that are inspired by an algebra like that for a language like Python (of course a Collection is treated special, etc...) Use static methods to build up structures like LISP's S-expressions. These tactics can be used, for better or worse, to write Java DSLs that appear to describe "business rules" in plain English with the caveat that things like that are never as easy for muggles to maintain as you wish they were.
- devin 2y ago
  I also find that it's a nice exercise on the way to learning a new language. I spend a lot of time in Clojure, so I'll ask and answer "okay where are the lambda-like things, how do I apply them over collections" and then write up something I know is not at all what the language designer intended for kicks. As an added bonus, it is fun to show your work to a coworker proficient in the target language and watch the blood drain from their face.

Animats 2y ago

Yes. I haven't heard UNIVAC's facility in Blue Bell, PA, mentioned in a very long time. Original BASIC had neither data structures nor scope. So programmers who started with BASIC lacked some key concepts. There was thus a problem at one time with programmers who started in BASIC.

PaulHoule 2y ago
I started in BASIC but I'm long past it. I got this pretty quick in a ROM cartridge https://www.cocopedia.com/wiki/index.php/EDTASM%2B https://www.cocopedia.com/wiki/index.php/EDTASM%2B when I was still saving programs on tape. Assembly lacks many of the things BASIC lacks though. Wrote my own program that would take BASIC source code without line numbers and with structured control structures and compile to BASIC. Also got PASCAL and C compilers, wrote a lot of Turbo Pascal for the PC in the late 1980s, got into the C habit when I went to college, picked up Java in my PhD program and I've been coding it ever since.
readthenotes1 2y ago
"There was thus a problem at one time with programmers who started in BASIC" and who never bothered to learn the affordances, constraints, and idioms of their new language.

PaulHoule 2y ago

I've always taken a particular joy in "Writing code like Language A in Language B" I like Java as a host language to do things like: Write numerical codes in FORTRAN style, allocating a few big arrays at the beginning and not pressuring the garbage collector. This is how I'd write an FFT, matrix inversion, or something like that. Write programs with very few class definitions but a large number of static methods. (Like any non-OO languages, but static methods can go nicely with a few well chosen classes you make instances of) Write static methods that take instances of "Object" as a parameter that are inspired by an algebra like that for a language like Python (of course a Collection is treated special, etc...) Use static methods to build up structures like LISP's S-expressions. These tactics can be used, for better or worse, to write Java DSLs that appear to describe "business rules" in plain English with the caveat that things like that are never as easy for muggles to maintain as you wish they were.

devin 2y ago
I also find that it's a nice exercise on the way to learning a new language. I spend a lot of time in Clojure, so I'll ask and answer "okay where are the lambda-like things, how do I apply them over collections" and then write up something I know is not at all what the language designer intended for kicks. As an added bonus, it is fun to show your work to a coworker proficient in the target language and watch the blood drain from their face.