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Real Programmers... p. 1
"Real Programmers Don't Use PASCAL"
Back in the good old days -- the "Golden Era" of computers, it
was easy to separate the men from the boys (sometimes called "Real
Men" and "Quiche Eaters" in the literature). During this period, the
Real Men were the ones that understood computer programming, and the
Quiche Eaters were the ones that didn't. A real computer programmer
said things like "DO 10 I=1,10" and "ABEND" (they actually talked in
capital letters, you understand), and the rest of the world said
things like "computers are too complicated for me" and "I can't relate
to computers -- they're so impersonal". (A previous work [1] points
out that Real Men don't "relate" to anything, and aren't afraid of
being impersonal.)
But, as usual, times change. We are faced today with a world
in which little old ladies can get computers in their microwave ovens,
12-year-old kids can blow Real Men out of the water playing Asteroids
and Pac-Man, and anyone can buy and even understand their very own
Personal Computer. The Real Programmer is in danger of becoming
extinct, of being replaced by high-school students with TRASH-80's.
There is a clear need to point out the differences between the
typical high-school junior Pac-Man player and a Real Programmer. If
this difference is made clear, it will give these kids something to
aspire to -- a role model, a Father Figure. It will also help explain
to the employers of Real Programmers why it would be a mistake to
replace the Real Programmers on their staff with 12-year-old Pac-Man
players (at a considerable salary savings).
LANGUAGES
---------
The easiest way to tell a Real Programmer from the crowd is by
the programming language he (or she) uses. Real Programmers use
FORTRAN. Quiche Eaters use PASCAL. Nicklaus Wirth, the designer of
PASCAL, gave a talk once at which he was asked "How do you pronounce
your name?". He replied, "You can either call me by name, pronouncing
it 'Veert', or call me by value, 'Worth'." One can tell immediately
from this comment that Nicklaus Wirth is a Quiche Eater. The only
parameter passing mechanism endorsed by Real Programmers is
call-by-value-return, as implemented in the IBM\370 FORTRAN-G and H
compilers. Real programmers don't need all these abstract concepts to
get their jobs done -- they are perfectly happy with a keypunch, a
FORTRAN IV compiler, and a beer.
* Real Programmers do List Processing in FORTRAN.
* Real Programmers do String Manipulation in FORTRAN.
* Real Programmers do Accounting (if they do it at all) in FORTRAN.
* Real Programmers do Artificial Intelligence programs in FORTRAN.
If you can't do it in FORTRAN, do it in assembly language. If you
can't do it in assembly language, it isn't worth doing.
Real Programmers... p. 2
STRUCTURED PROGRAMMING
----------------------
The academics in computer science have gotten into the
"structured programming" rut over the past several years. They claim
that programs are more easily understood if the programmer uses some
special language constructs and techniques. They don't all agree on
exactly which constructs, of course, and the examples they use to show
their particular point of view invariably fit on a single page of some
obscure journal or another -- clearly not enough of an example to
convince anyone. When I got out of school, I thought I was the best
programmer in the world. I could write an unbeatable tic-tac-toe
program, use five different computer languages, and create 1000-line
programs that WORKED. (Really!) Then I got out into the Real World.
My first task in the Real World was to read and understand a
200,000-line FORTRAN program, then speed it up by a factor of two. Any
Real Programmer will tell you that all the Structured Coding in the
world won't help you solve a problem like that -- it takes actual
talent. Some quick observations on Real Programmers and Structured
Programming:
* Real Programmers aren't afraid to use GOTO's.
* Real Programmers can write five-page-long DO loops without
getting confused.
* Real Programmers like Arithmetic IF statements -- they make the
code more interesting.
* Real Programmers write self-modifying code, especially if they
can save 20 nanoseconds in the middle of a tight loop.
* Real Programmers don't need comments -- the code is obvious.
* Since FORTRAN doesn't have a structured IF, REPEAT ... UNTIL, or
CASE statement, Real Programmers don't have to worry about not
using them. Besides, they can be simulated when necessary using
assigned GOTO's.
Data Structures have also gotten a lot of press lately.
Abstract Data Types, Structures, Pointers, Lists, and Strings have
become popular in certain circles. Wirth (the above-mentioned Quiche
Eater) actually wrote an entire book [2] contending that you could
write a program based on data structures, instead of the other way
around. As all Real Programmers know, the only useful data structure
is the Array. Strings, lists, structures, sets -- these are all
special cases of arrays and can be treated that way just as easily
without messing up your programing language with all sorts of
complications. The worst thing about fancy data types is that you have
to declare them, and Real Programming Languages, as we all know, have
implicit typing based on the first letter of the (six character)
variable name.
Real Programmers... p. 3
OPERATING SYSTEMS
-----------------
What kind of operating system is used by a Real Programmer?
CP/M? God forbid -- CP/M, after all, is basically a toy operating
system. Even little old ladies and grade school students can
understand and use CP/M.
Unix is a lot more complicated of course -- the typical Unix
hacker never can remember what the PRINT command is called this week
-- but when it gets right down to it, Unix is a glorified video game.
People don't do Serious Work on Unix systems: they send jokes around
the world on UUCP-net and write adventure games and research papers.
No, your Real Programmer uses OS\370. A good programmer can
find and understand the description of the IJK305I error he just got
in his JCL manual. A great programmer can write JCL without referring
to the manual at all. A truly outstanding programmer can find bugs
buried in a 6 megabyte core dump without using a hex calculator. (I
have actually seen this done.)
OS is a truly remarkable operating system. It's possible to
destroy days of work with a single misplaced space, so alertness in
the programming staff is encouraged. The best way to approach the
system is through a keypunch. Some people claim there is a Time
Sharing system that runs on OS\370, but after careful study I have
come to the conclusion that they were mistaken.
PROGRAMMING TOOLS
----------------
What kind of tools does a Real Programmer use? In theory, a
Real Programmer could run his programs by keying them into the front
panel of the computer. Back in the days when computers had front
panels, this was actually done occasionally. Your typical Real
Programmer knew the entire bootstrap loader by memory in hex, and
toggled it in whenever it got destroyed by his program. (Back then,
memory was memory -- it didn't go away when the power went off.
Today, memory either forgets things when you don't want it to, or
remembers things long after they're better forgotten.) Legend has it
that Seymore Cray, inventor of the Cray I supercomputer and most of
Control Data's computers, actually toggled the first operating system
for the CDC7600 in on the front panel from memory when it was first
powered on. Seymore, needless to say, is a Real Programmer.
One of my favorite Real Programmers was a systems programmer
for Texas Instruments. One day he got a long distance call from a
user whose system had crashed in the middle of saving some important
work. Jim was able to repair the damage over the phone, getting the
user to toggle in disk I/O instructions at the front panel, repairing
system tables in hex, reading register contents back over the phone.
The moral of this story: while a Real Programmer usually includes a
keypunch and lineprinter in his toolkit, he can get along with just a
front panel and a telephone in emergencies.
Real Programmers... p. 4
In some companies, text editing no longer consists of ten
engineers standing in line to use an 029 keypunch. In fact, the
building I work in doesn't contain a single keypunch. The Real
Programmer in this situation has to do his work with a "text editor"
program. Most systems supply several text editors to select from, and
the Real Programmer must be careful to pick one that reflects his
personal style. Many people believe that the best text editors in the
world were written at Xerox Palo Alto Research Center for use on their
Alto and Dorado computers [3]. Unfortunately, no Real Programmer
would ever use a computer whose operating system is called SmallTalk,
and would certainly not talk to the computer with a mouse.
Some of the concepts in these Xerox editors have been
incorporated into editors running on more reasonably named operating
systems -- EMACS and VI being two. The problem with these editors is
that Real Programmers consider "what you see is what you get" to be
just as bad a concept in Text Editors as it is in women. No the Real
Programmer wants a "you asked for it, you got it" text editor --
complicated, cryptic, powerful, unforgiving, dangerous. TECO, to be
precise.
It has been observed that a TECO command sequence more closely
resembles transmission line noise than readable text [4]. One of the
more entertaining games to play with TECO is to type your name in as a
command line and try to guess what it does. Just about any possible
typing error while talking with TECO will probably destroy your
program, or even worse -- introduce subtle and mysterious bugs in a
once working subroutine.
For this reason, Real Programmers are reluctant to actually
edit a program that is close to working. They find it much easier to
just patch the binary object code directly, using a wonderful program
called SUPERZAP (or its equivalent on non-IBM machines). This works
so well that many working programs on IBM systems bear no relation to
the original FORTRAN code. In many cases, the original source code is
no longer available. When it comes time to fix a program like this,
no manager would even think of sending anything less than a Real
Programmer to do the job -- no Quiche Eating structured programmer
would even know where to start. This is called "job security".
Some programming tools NOT used by Real Programmers:
* FORTRAN preprocessors like MORTRAN and RATFOR. The Cuisinarts of
programming -- great for making Quiche. See comments above on
structured programming.
* Source language debuggers. Real Programmers can read core dumps.
* Compilers with array bounds checking. They stifle creativity,
destroy most of the interesting uses for EQUIVALENCE, and make it
impossible to modify the operating system code with negative
subscripts. Worst of all, bounds checking is inefficient.
* Source code maintenance systems. A Real Programmer keeps his code
locked up in a card file, because it implies that its owner
cannot leave his important programs unguarded [5].
Real Programmers... p. 5
THE REAL PROGRAMMER AT WORK
---------------------------
Where does the typical Real Programmer work? What kind of
programs are worthy of the efforts of so talented an individual? You
can be sure that no Real Programmer would be caught dead writing
accounts-receivable programs in COBOL, or sorting mailing lists for
People magazine. A Real Programmer wants tasks of earth-shaking
importance (literally!).
* Real Programmers work for Los Alamos National Laboratory, writing
atomic bomb simulations to run on Cray I supercomputers.
* Real Programmers work for the National Security Agency, decoding
Russian transmissions.
* It was largely due to the efforts of thousands of Real
Programmers working for NASA that our boys got to the moon and
back before the Russkies.
* Real Programmers are at work for Boeing designing the operating
systems for cruise missiles.
Some of the most awesome Real Programmers of all work at the
Jet Propulsion Laboratory in California. Many of them know the entire
operating system of the Pioneer and Voyager spacecraft by heart. With
a combination of large ground-based FORTRAN programs and small
spacecraft-based assembly language programs, they are able to do
incredible feats of navigation and improvisation -- hitting
ten-kilometer wide windows at Saturn after six years in space,
repairing or bypassing damaged sensor platforms, radios, and
batteries. Allegedly, one Real Programmer managed to tuck a
pattern-matching program into a few hundred bytes of unused memory in
a Voyager spacecraft that searched for, located, and photographed a
new moon of Jupiter.
The current plan for the Galileo spacecraft is to use a
gravity assist trajectory past Mars on the way to Jupiter. This
trajectory passes within 80 +/-3 kilometers of the surface of Mars.
Nobody is going to trust a PASCAL program (or a PASCAL programmer) for
navigation to these tolerances.
As you can tell, many of the world's Real Programmers work for
the U.S. Government -- mainly the Defense Department. This is as it
should be. Recently, however, a black cloud has formed on the Real
Programmer horizon. It seems that some highly placed Quiche Eaters at
the Defense Department decided that all Defense programs should be
written in some grand unified language called "ADA" ((C), DoD). For a
while, it seemed that ADA was destined to become a language that went
against all the precepts of Real Programming -- a language with
structure, a language with data types, strong typing, and semicolons.
In short, a language designed to cripple the creativity of the typical
Real Programmer. Fortunately, the language adopted by DoD has enough
interesting features to make it approachable -- it's incredibly
complex, includes methods for messing with the operating system and
rearranging memory, and Edsgar Dijkstra doesn't like it [6].
(Dijkstra, as I'm sure you know, was the author of "GoTos Considered
Harmful" -- a landmark work in programming methodology, applauded by
PASCAL programmers and Quiche Eaters alike.) Besides, the determined
Real Programmer can write FORTRAN programs in any language.
Real Programmers... p. 6
The Real Programmer might compromise his principles and work
on something slightly more trivial than the destruction of life as we
know it, providing there's enough money in it. There are several Real
Programmers building video games at Atari, for example. (But not
playing them -- a Real Programmer knows how to beat the machine every
time: no challenge in that.) Everyone working at LucasFilm is a Real
Programmer. (It would be crazy to turn down the money of fifty
million Star Trek fans.) The proportion of Real Programmers in
Computer Graphics is somewhat lower than the norm, mostly because
nobody has found a use for computer graphics yet. On the other hand,
all computer graphics is done in FORTRAN, so there are a fair number
of people doing graphics in order to avoid having to write COBOL
programs.
Real Programmers... p. 7
THE REAL PROGRAMMER AT PLAY
---------------------------
Generally, the Real Programmer plays the same way he works --
with computers. He is constantly amazed that his employer actually
pays him to do what he would be doing for fun anyway (although he is
careful not to express this opinion out loud). Occasionally, the Real
Programmer does step out of the office for a breath of fresh air and a
beer or two. Some tips on recognizing Real Programmers away from the
computer room:
* At a party, the Real Programmers are the ones in the corner
talking about operating system security and how to get around it.
* At a football game, the Real Programmer is the one comparing the
plays against his simulations printed on 11 by 14 fanfold paper.
* At the beach, the Real Programmer is the one drawing flowcharts
in the sand.
* At a funeral, the Real Programmer is the one saying "Poor George.
And he almost had the sort routine working before the coronary."
* In a grocery store, the Real Programmer is the one who insists on
running the cans past the laser checkout scanner himself, because
he never could trust keypunch operators to get it right the first
time.
Real Programmers... p. 8
THE REAL PROGRAMMER'S NATURAL HABITAT
-------------------------------------
What sort of environment does the Real Programmer function
best in? This is an important question for the managers of Real
Programmers. Considering the amount of money it costs to keep one on
the staff, it's best to put him (or her) in an environment where he
can get his work done.
The typical Real Programmer lives in front of a computer
terminal. Surrounding this terminal are:
* Listings of all programs the Real Programmer has ever worked on,
piled in roughly chronological order on every flat surface in the
office.
* Some half-dozen or so partly filled cups of cold coffee.
Occasionally, there will be cigarette butts floating in the
coffee. In some cases, the cups will contain Orange Crush.
* Unless he is very good, there will be copies of the OS JCL manual
and the Principles of Operation open to some particularly
interesting pages.
* Taped to the wall is a line-printer Snoopy calendar for the year
1969.
* Strewn about the floor are several wrappers for peanut butter
filled cheese bars -- the type that are made pre-stale at the
bakery so they can't get any worse while waiting in the vending
machine.
* Hiding in the top left-hand drawer of the desk is a stash of
double-stuff Oreos for special occasions.
* Underneath the Oreos is a flowcharting template, left there by
the previous occupant of the office. (Real Programmers write
programs, not documentation. Leave that to the maintenance
people.)
The Real Programmer is capable of working 30, 40, even 50
hours at a stretch, under intense pressure. In fact, he prefers it
that way. Bad response time doesn't bother the Real Programmer -- it
gives him a chance to catch a little sleep between compiles. If there
is not enough schedule pressure on the Real Programmer, he tends to
make things more challenging by working on some small but interesting
part of the problem for the first nine weeks, then finishing the rest
in the last week, in two or three 50-hour marathons. This not only
impresses the hell out of his manager, who was despairing of ever
getting the project done on time, but creates a convenient excuse for
not doing the documentation. In general:
* No Real Programmer works 9 to 5 (unless it's the ones at night).
* Real Programmers don't wear neckties.
* Real Programmers don't wear high-heeled shoes.
* Real Programmers arrive at work in time for lunch [9].
* A Real Programmer might or might not know his wife's name. He
does, however, know the entire ASCII (or EBCDIC) code table.
* Real Programmers don't know how to cook. Grocery stores aren't
open at three in the morning. Real Programmers survive on
Twinkies and coffee.
Real Programmers... p. 9
THE FUTURE
----------
What of the future? It is a matter of some concern to Real
Programmers that the latest generation of computer programmers are not
being brought up with the same outlook on life as their elders. Many
of them have never seen a computer with a front panel. Hardly anyone
graduating from school these days can do hex arithmetic without a
calculator. College graduates these days are soft -- protected from
the realities of programming by source level debuggers, text editors
that count parentheses, and "user friendly" operating systems. Worst
of all, some of these alleged "computer scientists" manage to get
degrees without ever learning FORTRAN! Are we destined to become an
industry of Unix hackers and PASCAL programmers?
From my experience, I can only report that the future is
bright for Real Programmers everywhere. Neither OS\370 nor FORTRAN
show any signs of dying out, despite all the efforts of PASCAL
programmers the world over. Even more subtle tricks, like adding
structured coding constructs to FORTRAN have failed. Oh sure, some
computer vendors have come out with FORTRAN 77 compilers, but every
one of them has a way of converting itself back into a FORTRAN 66
compiler at the drop of an option card -- to compile DO loops like God
meant them to be.
Even Unix might not be as bad on Real Programmers as it once
was. The latest release of Unix has the potential of an operating
system worthy of any Real Programmer -- two different and subtly
incompatible user interfaces, an arcane and complicated teletype
driver, virtual memory. If you ignore the fact that it's
"structured", even 'C' programming can be appreciated by the Real
Programmer: after all, there's no type checking, variable names are
seven (ten? eight?) characters long, and the added bonus of the
Pointer data type is thrown in -- like having the best parts of
FORTRAN and assembly language in one place. (Not to mention some of
the more creative uses for #define.)
No, the future isn't all that bad. Why, in the past few
years, the popular press has even commented on the bright new crop of
computer nerds and hackers ([7] and [8]) leaving places like Stanford
and M.I.T. for the Real World. From all evidence, the spirit of Real
Programming lives on in these young men and women. As long as there
are ill-defined goals, bizarre bugs, and unrealistic schedules, there
will be Real Programmers willing to jump in and Solve The Problem,
saving the documentation for later. Long live FORTRAN!
Real Programmers... p. 10
ACKNOWLEGEMENT
--------------
I would like to thank Jan E., Dave S., Rich G., Rich E., for
their help in characterizing the Real Programmer, Heather B. for the
illustration, Kathy E. for putting up with it, and atd!avsdS:mark for
the initial inspiration.
REFERENCES
----------
[1] Feirstein, B., "Real Men don't Eat Quiche", New
York, Pocket Books, 1982.
[2] Wirth, N., "Algorithms + Data Structures =
Programs", Prentice Hall, 1976.
[3] Ilson, R., "Recent Research in Text Processing",
IEEE Trans. Prof. Commun., Vol. PC-23, No. 4,
Dec. 4, 1980.
[4] Finseth, C., "Theory and Practice of Text Editors
-- or -- a Cookbook for an EMACS", B.S. Thesis,
MIT/LCS/TM-165, Massachusetts Institute of
Technology, May 1980.
[5] Weinberg, G., "The Psychology of Computer
Programming", New York, Van Nostrand Reinhold,
1971, p. 110.
[6] Dijkstra, E., "On the GREEN language submitted to
the DoD", Sigplan notices, Vol. 3 No. 10, Oct
1978.
[7] Rose, Frank, "Joy of Hacking", Science 82, Vol. 3
No. 9, Nov 82, pp. 58-66.
[8] "The Hacker Papers", Psychology Today, August 1980.
[9] sdcarl!lin, "Real Programmers", UUCP-net, Thu Oct
21 16:55:16 1982
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