39 lines
1.5 KiB
Plaintext
39 lines
1.5 KiB
Plaintext
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Structured Programmer's Soliloquy
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SP or not SP -- that is the question:
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Whether 'tis nobler in the mind to suffer
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The rules and exceptions of outrageous FORTRAN
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Or to take arms against a sea of transfers
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And by structuring end them. To code -- to test
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No more; and by a test to say we end
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The heartache, and the thousand natural mistakes
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That FORTRAN is heir to. 'Tis a consummation
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Devoutly to be wish'd. To code -- to test.
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To test -- perchance to bomb: aye, there's the rub!
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For in that test of code what bugs may come
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When we have shuffled of this FORTRAN code,
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Must give us pause. There's the respect
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that makes calamity of so long lists. [??]
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For who would bear the whips and scorns of time-sharing
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Th' operating systems wrong, the computer's crash,
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The pangs of despis'd code, the turnaround's delay,
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The insolence of compilers, and the spurns
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That patient coding of FORTRAN takes
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When he himself might his quietus make
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with PL/I? Who would this FORTRAN Bear,
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To grunt and sweat under a weary language,
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But that the dread of something after FORTRAN
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The undiscover'd country, from whose bourne
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No programmer returns -- puzzles the will,
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And makes us rather bear those ills we have
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Than fly to others that we know not of?
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Thus conscience does make cowards of us all,
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And thus the native hue of resolution
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Is sicklied o'er with the pale cast of thought,
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And enterprises of great pith and moment
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With this regard their currents turn away
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And lose the name of action.
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- Henry Kleine and Philip H. Roberts
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April DATAMATION
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