Article View: alt.folklore.computers
Article #620790Re: Nostalgia
From: Charlie Gibbs
Date: Mon, 26 Feb 2018 16:25
Date: Mon, 26 Feb 2018 16:25
37 lines
2893 bytes
2893 bytes
On 2018-02-25, Andrew Swallow <am.sw...@btinternet.com> wrote: > On 23/02/2018 21:21, Walter Bushell wrote: > >> Gareth's Downstairs Computer >> <headstone255.but.n...@yahoo.com> wrote: >> >>> Yes, it did work and sold well. Upgrading though was such a pain that >>> they recoded in assembler *WITHOUT ANY COMMENTS* because, based on their >>> experience with hexadecimal machine code, assembler was "self documenting"! >> >> Such was also said about early Fortran. By comparison, their was something >> to be said. However more complex programs were attempted for the ability >> of the programmers. Zo . . . >> >>> Live and learn! > > Reading Fortran and Assembler code tells you how, it does not tell you > why. Comments are needed for that. "$(MYLANGUAGE) is so readable it doesn't need comments!" > Programs may be (partially) self documenting but files are not, their > fields need specifying. I'm starting to migrate toward CSV files with a heading line naming the fields. It's a step in the right direction, and looks pretty good when loaded into a spreadsheet. XML can be pretty self-documenting, but its large overhead means it's usually overkill. -- /~\ cgibbs@kltpzyxm.invalid (Charlie Gibbs) \ / I'm really at ac.dekanfrus if you read it the right way. X Top-posted messages will probably be ignored. See RFC1855. / \ HTML will DEFINITELY be ignored. Join the ASCII ribbon campaign!
Technical Details
Message-ID:
<p71cdv1c90@news2.newsguy.com>Path:
mbox-mo1.pugleaf.net!o9ni8378qte.1!nntp.google.com!peer01.iad!feed-me.highwinds-media.com!news.highwinds-media.com!spln!extra.newsguy.com!newsp.newsguy.com!news2References:
<p641l0$7er$1@dont-email.me> <vsedne5li_0xfxjHnZ2dnUU7-fOdnZ2d@giganews.com> <1798275321.540421278.448699.peter_flass-yahoo.com@news.eternal-september.org> <fennrjFber7U1@mid.individual.net> <p671b4212b3@news2.newsguy.com> <p672qv$74m$1@dont-email.me> <p67o2727bv@news1.newsguy.com> <p6967v$t5b$1@dont-email.me> <p6q0kb$t5$1@reader2.panix.com> <2MWdnbgKEKQjRA_HnZ2dnUU78XHNnZ2d@giganews.com>Show Full Headers
Complete Article Headers
X-Received: by 10.55.170.149 with SMTP id t143mr8216840qke.39.1519662383597; Mon, 26 Feb 2018 08:26:23 -0800 (PST) X-BeenThere: alt.folklore.computers@googlegroups.com Received: by 10.55.10.76 with SMTP id 73ls7769086qkk.7.gmail; Mon, 26 Feb 2018 08:26:21 -0800 (PST) X-Received: by 10.55.9.130 with SMTP id 124mr8279422qkj.55.1519662381956; Mon, 26 Feb 2018 08:26:21 -0800 (PST) MIME-Version: 1.0 Path: mbox-mo1.pugleaf.net!o9ni8378qte.1!nntp.google.com!peer01.iad!feed-me.highwinds-media.com!news.highwinds-media.com!spln!extra.newsguy.com!newsp.newsguy.com!news2 From: Charlie Gibbs <cgibbs@kltpzyxm.invalid> Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers Subject: Re: Nostalgia Date: 26 Feb 2018 16:25:35 GMT Organization: NewsGuy.com Lines: 37 Message-ID: <p71cdv1c90@news2.newsguy.com> References: <p641l0$7er$1@dont-email.me> <vsedne5li_0xfxjHnZ2dnUU7-fOdnZ2d@giganews.com> <1798275321.540421278.448699.peter_flass-yahoo.com@news.eternal-september.org> <fennrjFber7U1@mid.individual.net> <p671b4212b3@news2.newsguy.com> <p672qv$74m$1@dont-email.me> <p67o2727bv@news1.newsguy.com> <p6967v$t5b$1@dont-email.me> <p6q0kb$t5$1@reader2.panix.com> <2MWdnbgKEKQjRA_HnZ2dnUU78XHNnZ2d@giganews.com> NNTP-Posting-Host: p3bc619cbe0e7ed88f9bbb4a5b974f6b5766bc2c5cf1e9c3b.newsdawg.com User-Agent: slrn/1.0.1 (Linux) X-Received-Bytes: 2339 X-Received-Body-CRC: 4230820428 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=UTF-8 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit