S
spinoza1111
In <[email protected]>,
spinoza1111wrote:
Your interpretation is bizarre and (if you're not just being
disingenuous for the sake of manufacturing an opening for an attack)
idiotic. It is quite clear that, in the sentence quoted above, I was
using the word "it" to refer to racism itself, not to any particular
person - and I suspect you know this all too well.
Stack-based implementations certainly exist, and there's nothing wrong
with explaining how they work. But anyone who thinks that *all*
implementations use stacks for passing *all* parameters is fooling
themselves and, worse, potentially fooling other people too. Besides,
assuming a stack is not a prerequisite for giving a straight answer.
When you explain computing using basic simulation, using common,
vanilla approaches, you are in fact teaching good thinking in the form
of "playing computer". This is also known as "desk checking" and it is
a valuable way of eliminating bugs.
It was a necessity when I started out, since old "mainframe" computers
required you to submit your "job" through a window or use the machine
as its operator for a fixed time slice, and in many universities and
corporations, programmers had only one or two "shots" per week.
Therefore the best programmers used their desk time effectively.
Then, it was discovered that kibitzing about code was a good way of
socialising without getting into trouble with the primitive and cruel
managers of that era, because you could find bugs even faster. This is
how Gerald "The Psychology of Computer Programming" Weinberg developed
the idea of the "structured walkthrough".
It was also discovered that to be productive, the structured
walkthough had to be a zone of tolerance. The most brilliant
programmers, by 1970, were disenchanted with American, West European,
and (according to post 1989 histories) Soviet societies and growing
hair and beards. Increasing numbers of women were entering the field
(such as Alicia Nash, John's wife) and it was found that they were in
many ways better than many men at coding.
It was also found that loudmouths like Heathfield were disruptive and
prevented work from getting done.
The talk was not, for the most part, of standards and practises in
standards books, although the best programmers not only were willing
to follow standards when they made sense, they invented them,
including "Hungarian notation".
The talk was like that of Schildt. People reasoned using simplified
and generalized models of the machine.
For this reason, Seebach is being very irresponsible in criticising
Schildt for talking of stacks, and reminds me of the destructive (and
in many cases sexist) bastards who destroyed structured walkthroughs
by telling people what they could and could not say, without
developing an alternative way to solve problems.
In 1966, my buddy, who was already in programming, worked next to a
"keypunch" center in a Loop office. The manager would pace the aisle
calling the women who punched the cards "bitches" and "whores" to
ensure that the required number of keystrokes (which could be measured
by IBM keypunches) were made every day.
He also punished women who turned a "check" switch on to make sure
that their machines didn't produce invalid hole combinations because
he "didn't give a rat's ass" about errors: his supervisor didn't care
about anything except keystrokes.
Ten years later I was the supervisor of African American and Asian
women in a keypunch, card and 1401 center. We used the switch and got
a "verifier" to make sure the cards were correct. I wrote assembler
programs to check the data. In the "laid back" Seventies we were able
to make the controller wait for his reports without being accused of
slacking off.
Then, of course, Reagan was elected and today, we're back to the
ageist, sexist and racist office of yesteryear. Except you can't
smoke.
The attack on Schildt and your behavior are how society works on the
ground to keep people in their place. Schildt in 1989 was a bit of a
throwback to the old "cowboy" programmer and he knew his stuff, but by
1999, he was too much of an "individual" in a society which steals
people's efforts.