Real Programmers Don't Use Pascal (or Java, or Ruby, or...)

[Xipe Totec]

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.

http://www.pbm.com/~lindahl/real.programmers.html

[hobbit709]

1. I remember flipping all those switches on the front panel on an Altair 8800.

And even on TI 960 and 980.

[whistler162]

2. 1's and 0's maybe if desperate Assembler!

[Xipe Totec]

3. There are 10 kinds of people

Those who understand binary, and those who don't.

[hunter]

4. 1 or 0, true or false, not "10"

Ordinary English isn't logical.

[charlie]

5. That's the joke, isn't it?

It reads "there are 2 kinds of people..." in binary.

[hunter]

6. Every time I see that it seems they've wasted a bit.

You only need a 1 or a 0 to describe the state.

"01" understands binary

"00" doesn't understand binary.

Done.

So what's "11"?

Maybe it's hunter, who grew up when computer memory was very, very expensive.

[charlie]

7. Ohhh... okay

I understand now :)

[struggle4progress]

8. There are 11 kinds of people: those who can count and those who can't

[EOTE]

9. 00 = 0, 01 = 1.

I don't see where you're seeing this wasted bit:

00 = 0
01 = 1
10 = 2

So it doesn't make much sense to say there's only one type of person in the world. When referring to decimal math, I never hear people saying that there's 1 types of people in this world.