Mnemonic

[jacob navia]

Mnemonic means trying to remember.

Mnemonic means making annotations that remind you.

Speaking about mnemonic I saw this message.

> Richard wrote:
>
>
> We are old. Debugging a 300.000 line monster, wasn't very practical on a
> VT100 terminal. Something like 24 lines of code on the screen... so a
> program listing was usually nearby.
>

One of the problems with old people is that they tend to live in the
past.

They will always start telling you their "war stories" to
impress in the naive youths how HARD were the old times.

Again and again, without ever paying attention to the bored look of the
people around them...

Who cares about the old times?

TO HELL WITH THE OLD TIMES!

I am too old to live in the past. That was something I could afford
only back then... I am younger now.

TO HELL WITH THE OLD TIMES!

There is no more time to waste looking back into what was
"back then", filling life with too much rubbish that
can be safely forgotten.

This group is looking like those old people groups,
where each one starts the never ending stories, always repeated,

"You remember back then?"

When the Unisys XXX and his padding bits, 36.688 bit word
existed?

Ahhh the PDP11 and the VT100 terminal... Those were the times my friend.

The problem with age is that you tend to be swallowed by your memories.

You loose the future, the curiosity, the opennes of wondering. You
become a prisoner of the past, you abhor change. C99 is way too new.

Let's go back to C89... Those were the times my friend!

TO HELL WITH THE OLD TIMES!

 

[santosh]

jacob navia wrote:

<snipped tedious rant against history>

History teaches humility and perspective and gives a new value to
current life as the result of a collective spirit and labour of many
billions before use.

Trying hard to forget the past is as sure a sign of abnormality as
always wrapped up in it.

PS. BTW by many points of view C itself is a legacy language or nearly
one. Since you want to forget history and legacy so badly, why don't
you consider developing for one of the many shiny new languages popping
up every now and then. I suggest C#/CLI/.NET. It has many of the
features that you are constantly trying to bolt onto C.

 

[jacob navia]

jacob navia wrote:

<snipped tedious rant against history>

History teaches humility and perspective and gives a new value to
current life as the result of a collective spirit and labour of many
billions before use.

Trying hard to forget the past is as sure a sign of abnormality as
always wrapped up in it.

PS. BTW by many points of view C itself is a legacy language or nearly
one. Since you want to forget history and legacy so badly, why don't
you consider developing for one of the many shiny new languages popping
up every now and then. I suggest C#/CLI/.NET. It has many of the
features that you are constantly trying to bolt onto C.

I do not think that C is a legacy language. And I am not "against
history" obviously. I am against people that live in the past.

You do not forget history, but you do not live in the past. The
past is a guide to the future, not just a remembering without
any goal, like in the groups of some old people like this one.

 

[Kenny McCormack]

I do not think that C is a legacy language. And I am not "against
history" obviously. I am against people that live in the past.

C, as defined in this newsgroup, *is* a legacy language.

Jacob (and others in the real world, not in this ng [e.g., Microsoft])
want to "embrace and expand" C into something modern and useful (what
one of the santoshes calls "bolting on"). The regs in this NG want no
part of that.

 

[Eric Sosman]

C, as defined in this newsgroup, *is* a legacy language.

Is there something wrong with a legacy?

leg.a.cy, n 1 : a gift by will esp. of money or other
personal property : BEQUEST 2 : something received from
an ancestor or predecessor or from the past
-- Webster's Seventh New Collegiate Dictionary

When the time comes (or came), will you (did you) refuse your
inheritance?

Jacob (and others in the real world, not in this ng [e.g., Microsoft])
want to "embrace and expand" C into something modern and useful (what
one of the santoshes calls "bolting on"). The regs in this NG want no
part of that.

To the final sentence (only): A-men, brother!

 

[Kenny McCormack]

Is there something wrong with a legacy?

leg.a.cy, n 1 : a gift by will esp. of money or other
personal property : BEQUEST 2 : something received from
an ancestor or predecessor or from the past
-- Webster's Seventh New Collegiate Dictionary

When the time comes (or came), will you (did you) refuse your
inheritance?

Heh heh. While I certainly take your meaning, the fact is that, in
modern computer industry vernacular, the word legacy is always a word of
negative connotation.

I didn't make the rules.

 

[Eric Sosman]

Heh heh. While I certainly take your meaning, the fact is that, in
modern computer industry vernacular, the word legacy is always a word of
negative connotation.

Why are you using a six-year-old version of a newsreader
that's more than fifteen years old, and whose origins go back
at least twenty-three years? Each time you launch this piece
of legacy software, written in a legacy language, running on
your legacy computer, do you have a negative experience?

 

[Richard]

Why are you using a six-year-old version of a newsreader
that's more than fifteen years old, and whose origins go back
at least twenty-three years? Each time you launch this piece
of legacy software, written in a legacy language, running on
your legacy computer, do you have a negative experience?

You appear to have missed his point. The language and "common usage" of
legacy in the SW world is to mean ancient stuff kept on for
compatibility/budget requirements. It is most definitely a negative
connotation. Regardless of the dictionary meaning. And, FWIW, I agree
with you that the old stuff has its place today. People scoff at me for
using Gnus since its "non gui". Little do they know.

 

[jacob navia]

You appear to have missed his point. The language and "common usage" of
legacy in the SW world is to mean ancient stuff kept on for
compatibility/budget requirements. It is most definitely a negative
connotation. Regardless of the dictionary meaning. And, FWIW, I agree
with you that the old stuff has its place today. People scoff at me for
using Gnus since its "non gui". Little do they know.

1) If C is a legacy language, as Santosh and the C++
supporters in this group propose, then what is the
purpose of doing anything here? Nobody cares about
C since C is doomed to extinction. Why do they
participate in this newsgroup?

2) In my message I wasn't arguing against history or
against old people. I was pointing out that the
some people in this group are living in the past.
Living in the past is a state of refusal of change,
of anything new, and an adoration of the "old times"
(C89) where everything was pure and uncontaminated.

This is common in old people but not necessarily.
There are young people that are older than my
grandfather. Dead before they were born.

3) The level of discussion of those people is just
polemic. I presented (with source code) a proposal
for a dynamic string container. None of them
answered anything, there were only two answers.
Why?
Because they are utterly unable to discuss
technical matters beyond the endless citing
of the C89 standard...

4) Obviously, the same people that attack me
about me not disclosing the source code of
my compiler system will never discuss a
technical proposal even if I do publish the
source code *in this group*.

 

[Keith Thompson]

Kenny McCormack wrote: [snip]

Why are you using a six-year-old version of a newsreader

[snip]

Eric, please stop feeding the troll.

 

[Mark McIntyre]

Who cares about the old times?

Santayana anyone?

There is no more time to waste looking back into what was
"back then", filling life with too much rubbish that
can be safely forgotten.

We can safely assume you have no interest in learning from past
mistakes or successes then.

--
Mark McIntyre

"Debugging is twice as hard as writing the code in the first place.
Therefore, if you write the code as cleverly as possible, you are,
by definition, not smart enough to debug it."
--Brian Kernighan

 

[Eric Sosman]

[...]
3) The level of discussion of those people is just
polemic. I presented (with source code) a proposal
for a dynamic string container. None of them
answered anything, there were only two answers.
Why?

Stop right there, Jacob: Do you claim paranormal powers?
Have you been reading everyone's mind?

Because they are utterly unable to discuss
technical matters beyond the endless citing
of the C89 standard...

Silly me! I thought my reasons for abstaining from that
particular thread were entirely different -- but since you say
otherwise, I must, of course, have been totally mistaken. Thank
you for opening my blind eyes to the Truth that flows from Jacob.

 

[Eric Sosman]

Kenny McCormack wrote: [snip]
Why are you using a six-year-old version of a newsreader

[snip]

Eric, please stop feeding the troll.

And your C question was ...?

 

[Tor Rustad]

TO HELL WITH THE OLD TIMES!

"Ceux qui ne connaissent pas l'Histoire sont condamnés à la revivre"

 

[Keith Thompson]

Kenny McCormack wrote: [snip]
Why are you using a six-year-old version of a newsreader

[snip]
Eric, please stop feeding the troll.

And your C question was ...?

Can you please help to improve the signal-to-noise ratio of this
newsgroup, encouraging more discussion of C, by not feeding the troll?

 

[Kenny McCormack]

Kenny McCormack wrote:
[snip]
Why are you using a six-year-old version of a newsreader
[snip]
Eric, please stop feeding the troll.

And your C question was ...?

Can you please help to improve the signal-to-noise ratio of this
newsgroup, encouraging more discussion of C, by not feeding the troll?

Your C question was???

 

[Richard Heathfield]

Eric Sosman said:

[...]
3) The level of discussion of those people is just
polemic. I presented (with source code) a proposal
for a dynamic string container. None of them
answered anything, there were only two answers.
Why?

Stop right there, Jacob: Do you claim paranormal powers?
Have you been reading everyone's mind?

He hasn't been reading mine, it seems. The reason I rarely bother to say
anything about his proposals to change the language is that I cannot take
seriously the views on C of a man who, it is evident from his own
postings, knows so little about the language and is so hostile to those
who point out his mistakes.

 

[Kenny McCormack]

Why are you using a six-year-old version of a newsreader
that's more than fifteen years old, and whose origins go back
at least twenty-three years? Each time you launch this piece
of legacy software, written in a legacy language, running on
your legacy computer, do you have a negative experience?

Who said anything about me? I'm quite happy with my choice of
newsreader/OS/language-of-implementation-of-said-newsreader.

I was just objecting to your seeming attempt to cloud the discussion by
changing the commonly accepted meaning of the word "legacy" (when
applied to computer industry languages, etc). Obviously, the word has
more positive connotations when used in regards to inheritances and
college admissions (this later is intended semi-ironically).

 

[Eric Sosman]

Who said anything about me? I'm quite happy with my choice of
newsreader/OS/language-of-implementation-of-said-newsreader.

For you, then, "legacy" makes you "happy." Gotcha;
thanks for the clarification; out.

 

[robertwessel2]

Mnemonic means trying to remember.

Mnemonic means making annotations that remind you.

Speaking about mnemonic I saw this message.



One of the problems with old people is that they tend to live in the
past.

They will always start telling you their "war stories" to
impress in the naive youths how HARD were the old times.

Again and again, without ever paying attention to the bored look of the
people around them...

Who cares about the old times?

TO HELL WITH THE OLD TIMES!

I am too old to live in the past. That was something I could afford
only back then... I am younger now.

TO HELL WITH THE OLD TIMES!

There is no more time to waste looking back into what was
"back then", filling life with too much rubbish that
can be safely forgotten.

This group is looking like those old people groups,
where each one starts the never ending stories, always repeated,

"You remember back then?"

When the Unisys XXX and his padding bits, 36.688 bit word
existed?

Ahhh the PDP11 and the VT100 terminal... Those were the times my friend.

The problem with age is that you tend to be swallowed by your memories.

You loose the future, the curiosity, the opennes of wondering. You
become a prisoner of the past, you abhor change. C99 is way too new.

Let's go back to C89... Those were the times my friend!

TO HELL WITH THE OLD TIMES!

You're misunderstanding some of the reason that historical machines
and architectures are discussed. Obviously they have many odd
properties, but then so do *many* (usually embedded) environments that
C is used in. These days, embedded applications may well be the
predominant use of C. So why not refer to some architectural quirk of
the DSP123-ABC-xyz instead of some oddness of the PDP-11? Because
while we all know what the PDP-11 was, hardly anyone knows anything
about the DSP123-ABC-xyz.