jdougan

14 ms·

241.
by jdougan 3y ago
Becaues Clascal/Object Pascal had an enormous number of non-standard extensions to make it a much more system and apps oriented language than the 1973 version. I believe Bill Atkinson was involved in the decision. Same story with Turbo
242.
by jdougan 3y ago
No, it has write(), but some versions on some OSs needed an eol to flush the buffers. In general the file ops were deliberately underspecified [1], but it was 1973 and the variety of OSs was much weirder than today. [1] https://w
243.
by jdougan 3y ago
Sure. But for the output of the tiny calculator class project we did, it just didn't matter.
244.
by jdougan 3y ago
As I said in another forum earlier this week, "A lot of the hate centered around how it wasn’t a systems programming language, when it wasn’t supposed to be one. It’s like complaining your driving instructor’s car can’t be used to dig
245.
by jdougan 3y ago
There are fans of "niche" genres that could find value in this. In the late 80s an acquaintance dropped almost all of her friends, based on their tastes in and dedication to music. I could see her using something like that to help
246.
by jdougan 3y ago
Nit: James Gosling implemented Unipress Emacs aka. Gosmacs, not XEmacs (with a lot of licensing sturm-und-drang). XEmacs was forked from Gnu Emacs at Lucid, by jwz (Jamie Zawinski)
247.
by jdougan 3y ago
Look up the Jupiter Ace from 1982. A lot like a Timex-Sinclair, but with Forth as the built in language. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jupiter_Ace
248.
by jdougan 3y ago
Nah. Making a request of Santa is, by custom, explicily authorizing him to enter make the delivery. Putting out the cookies and milk for Santa, is extra confirmation.
249.
by jdougan 3y ago
Arguably you could use GemStone/S like that, though it's probably not the kind of capabilities you want.
250.
by jdougan 3y ago
Do you mean CritLink by Ka-Ping Yee? http://zesty.ca/crit/
251.
by jdougan 3y ago
And they did, in the usual half-a**ed, broken, honoured-more-in-the-breach-than-the-observance way such ideas usually get mass adopted.
252.
by jdougan 3y ago
At my job we wrote tests in Smalltalk and that was before Kent's work. It wasn't the later tests-first discipline. If I recall correctly write tests later was fairly common then in ST shops. SUnit also had the virtue of standardiz
253.
by jdougan 3y ago
You are a surprising percentage of the way to the Xanadu model.
254.
by jdougan 3y ago
I think the history parts need a serious rewrite. Still lots of people alive who lived through this.
255.
by jdougan 3y ago
When I was first exposed to the OSI model in the late 80s, it wasn't very good then either.
256.
by jdougan 3y ago
Apparently Mike Padlipsky lived in vain [1]. I'm surprised you did not mention his work. Defining and critiquing the reference models in the case of the ARPAnet and OSI was his thing. Much of it was published in a (quite funny) book T
257.
by jdougan 3y ago
Yup, that matches my memory of the AmSci project. Particle source, evacuated tube, generator and target. And shielding, depending on the target. Obviously, anything you can build in a normal USAian basement is probably not going to be 2MV,
258.
by jdougan 3y ago
Using older technology. Years ago there was a Scientific American Amateur Scientist column that outlined how to make a Van de Graff generator powered particle accelerator. If memory serves that was one of the columns that ended up in C.L. S
259.
by jdougan 3y ago
Learn good judgement!
260.
by jdougan 3y ago
Part of this is the obvious desire to use technology that is "resumé compliant" to make getting the next job easier. The other part is that "wisdom, judgment, and experience" is difficult to scale and often uncomfortable
261.
by jdougan 3y ago
Good judgement is an uncommon, uncomfortable and expensive thing. The individuals who follow the usual dev process suspects don't want to deal with that so they buy into the snake oil. Every so often it becomes obvious the current snak
262.
by jdougan 3y ago
I could use a feature like that.
263.
by jdougan 3y ago
Probably deliberate. It reads to me like they still have legal vulnerabilities, so they have to be careful.
264.
by jdougan 3y ago
That's too hard. Just use C-x M-c M-censordvd in emacs.
265.
by jdougan 3y ago
I had thought Charles Johnson had moved left politicaly? I haven't looked at his blog in a long time (15 years?)
266.
by jdougan 3y ago
The problem isn't intelligence, the problem is judgement. Many a smart person has built ridiculous and rickety towers of code, only understandable because they are smart. Good judgement mostly seems to come from bad judgement, failur
267.
by jdougan 3y ago
The general rule of thumb for helping people do periodic jobs reliably is to have the job be frequent enough you can't forget, on never have to do it. Too infrequent, and you forget what to do. Too frequent, and you get sloppy. I think
268.
by jdougan 3y ago
It feels like something that would happen in Canada, an anglo/franco political compromise that is biased neither way and satisfies no one.
269.
by jdougan 3y ago
I'd love that on a business card. Add a doodle of the Giant Lever, with a hand adjusting it...
270.
by jdougan 3y ago
The International Earth Rotation Service is possibly my favorite name for an international bureaucracy. It give me visions of a Giant Control Lever extending deep into the Earth, with the labels Faster and Slower .

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