PROGNOSIS FOR REAL PROGRAMMERS TODAY AND TOMORROW
Back in the good old days-- the "Golden Era" of computers, it was
quite easy to separate the real 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 Quiche Eaters were the ones that didn't. A real
computer programmer said things like:
DO 10 I=1,10
and:
ABEND
They talked in capital letters, you understand. 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 understand their own personal computer.
The Real Programmer is in danger of becoming extinct, of being
replaced by high-school students with TRS-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 to 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 very 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 call me by name, pronouncing it 'Veert',
or you can call me by value, 'Worth'". One can tell immediately from
this comment that Nicklaus Wirth is a Quiche Eater. The only
parameter passing mechanism that Real Programmers endorse is "call by
value-return", as implemented in the IBM/370 FORTRAN G and H
compilers. Real Programmers don't need all those abstract concepts to
get their jobs done-- they are perfectly happy with a keypunch, a
FORTRAN IV compiler, and a beer.
o Real Programmers do List Processing in FORTRAN.
o Real Programmers do String Manipulation in FORTRAN.
o Real Programmers do Accounting (if they do it at all) in FORTRAN.
o 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.
STRUCTURED PROGRAMMING
The academics in computer science have gotten into the "structured
programming" rut over the last several years. They claim that
programs are more easily understood if the programmer uses some
special 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 ino 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 Programming 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:
o Real Programmers aren't afraid to use GOTO's.
o Real Programmers can write five-page long DO loops without getting
confused.
o Real Programmers like arithmetic IF statements-- they make the
code more interesting.
o Real Programmers write self-modifying code, especially if they can
save 20 nanoseconds in the middle of a tight loop.
o Real Programmers don't need comments-- the code is obvious.
o 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, all those structures can be simulated, when necessary,
by 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. Nicklaus Wirth (the aforementioned Quiche Eater)
actually managed to write 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-- they are all just
special cases of Arrays and can be treated that way without messing up
you programming 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.
OPERATING SYSTEMS
What kind of operating system does the Real Programmer use? CP/M?
God forbid-- CP/M, after all, is basically a toy operating system.
Even little old ladies and grade school stu dents can use and
understand 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 the JCL
manual. A great programmer can write JCL without referring to the JCL
manual at all. A truly outstanding programmer can find bugs buried in
a six-Megabyte core dump without using a hex calculator (I have
actually seen this done).
OS/370 is a truly remarkable operating system. It's possible to
destroy days of work with a single misplaced space (actually this is
also true of UNIX), so alertness in the programming staff is
encouraged. The best way to approach the system is through a
keypunch. Some people claim that 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 kinds of tools does a Real Programmer use? In theory, a Real
Programmer could run his program 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 his program destroyed the bootstrap. Back then, memory was
memory-- it didn't go away when the power was turned off. Today,
memory either forgets things when you don't want it to, or remembers
things long after they're best forgotten. Legend has it that Seymour
Cray (who invented the Cray-1 supercomputer, and most of Control
Data's computers) actually toggled the first operating system for the
CDC-7600 in on the front panel from memory when it was first powered
on. Seymour, needless to say, is a Real Programmer.
One of my favorite Real Programmers was a systems programmer at 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 tele 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 telephone. The
moral of the 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.
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 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 use a computer
whose operating system is called SmallTalk, and would certainly never
talk to the computer with a mouse.
Some of the concepts in these Xerox editors have been incorporated
into editors running on more reasonable operating systems-- EMACS and
VI being two. The problem with these editors is that Real Programmers
consider "what you see is what you get" is just as bad a concept in
Text Editing as it is in women. No, the Real Programmer wants a "you
asked for it, you got it" text editor-- complicated, cryptic,
powerful, unforgiving, and 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 instead to
just patch the binary object code direct ly, using a wonderful program
called SUPERZAP (or it's 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 anyone 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".
Here are some programming tools that Real Programmers don't use:
o FORTRAN preprocessors line MORTRAN or RATFOR. These are the
Cuisinarts of programming-- great for making Quiche. See comments
above on Structured Programming.
o Source language debuggers. Real Programmers can read core dumps.
o Compilers with array bounds checking. They stifle creativity,
destroy most of the interesting uses for the EQUIVALENCE statement,
and make it impossible to modify the operating system code with
negative subscripts. Worst of all, bounds checking is ineffecient.
o Source code maintenence systems. A Real Programmer keeps the code
locked up in a card file, because it implies that the owner cannot
leave important programs unguarded [5].
THE REAL PROGRAMMER AT WORK
Where does the Real Programmer work? What kinds 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!).
o Real Programmers work for Los Alamos Mational Laboratory, writing
atomic bomb simulations to run on Cray-1 supercomputers.
o Real Programmers work for the National Security Agency, decoding
Russian transmissions.
o Real Programmers programmed the computers in the Space Shuttle.
o 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 were able to do
incredible feats of navigation and improvi sation-- hitting ten
kilometer wide windows at Saturn after six years in space, repairing
or bypassing damaged sensor platforms, radios, 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
80+-3 kilometers from the surface of Mars. Nobody is going to trust a
Pascal program (or a Pascal programmer for that matter) for navigation
to those tolerances.
As you can tell, many of the world's Real Programmers work for the
U.S. Government-- mainly the Department of Defense. This is as it
should be. Recently however, a black cloud has formed on the Real
Programmer's horizon. It seems some highly placed Quiche Eaters at
the Department of Defense 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 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 Real Programmer.
Fortunately, the language which the DoD adopted has enough interesting
features to make it approachable-- it's incredibly complex, includes
methods for messing with the operating system and rear ranging memory,
and Edsger Dijkstra doesn't like it [6]. Dijkstra, as I'm sure you
know, was the author of "The GoTo 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 might compromise their 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 writing video games at Atari, for example, (but not
playing them-- a Real Programmer knows how to beat the machine every
time-- there's no challenge in that). Everybody 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, mainly because no
one has found a use for Computer Graphics yet. On the other hand, all
Computer Graphics programming is done in FORTRAN, so there are a fair
number of people doing Graphics in order to avoid having to write
COBOL programs.
THE REAL PROGRAMMER AT PLAY
Generally, the Real Programmer plays the same way he works-- with
computers. The Real Programmer is constantly amazed that his employer
actually pays him for what he would be doing for fun anyway (although
he is careful not to express this opinion out loud). Occasionally, a
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:
o At a party, the Real Programmers are the ones in the corner
talking about operating system security and how to get around it.
o At a football game, the Real Programmer is the one comparing the
plays against a simulation printed on 11 by 14 fanfold paper.
o At the beach, the Real Programmer is the one drawing flowcharts in
the sand.
o At a funeral, the Real Programmer is the one saying "Poor George.
And he almost had the sort routine working before the coronary".
o In a grocery store, the Real Programmer is the one who insists on
running the cans by the laser checkout scanner himself, because he
never could trust keypunch operators to get it right the first time.
THE REAL PROGRAMMERS 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 Real Programmers on
the staff, it's best to put him or her in an environment where they
can actually get the work done.
The typical Real Programmer lives in front of a computer terminal.
Surrounding this terminal are:
o Listings of all the programs the Real Programmer has ever worked
on, piled in roughly chronological order on every flat surface in the
office.
o Some half-dozen or so partly filled cups of coffee. Occasionally
there will be cigarette butts floating in the coffee. In some cases,
the cups will contain Orange Crush.
o Unless the Real Programmer is very good, there will be copies of
the OS JCL manual and the Principles of Operation open at some
particularly interesting pages.
o Taped to the wall is a line-printer Snoopy calendar for the year
1969.
o Strewn about the floor are several wrappers for peanut butter
filled cheese bars-- of the type that are made pre-stale at the bakery
so that they can't get any worse while waiting in the vending machine.
o Hiding in the top left-hand drawer of the desk is a stash of
double-stuff Oreos for special occasions.
o Underneath the Oreos is a flow-charting 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 thirty, forty, even fifty
hours at a stretch, under intense pressure. In fact, the Real
Programmer prefers it that way. Bad response time doesn't bother the
Real Programmer-- it provides the 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
fifty-hour marathons. This not only impresses the hell out of the
Real Programmers manager, it also creates a convenient excuse for not
doing the documentation.
In general:
o No Real Programmer works nine to five (unless it's the ones at
night).
o A Real Programmer might or might not know the name of their
spouse. The Real Programmer does, however, know the entire EBCDIC (or
ASCII) code table.
o Real Programmers don't know how to cook. Grocery stores aren't
open at three o'clock in the morning. Real Programmers survive on
Twinkies and coffee.
THE FUTURE
What of the future? It is a matter if some concern to Real
Programmers that the latest generation of computer program mers 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
any 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
programming 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 to a FORTRAN-66
compiler at the drop of an option card-- to compile DO loops the way
God intended.
Even UNIX might not be as hard 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 compli cated teletype driver, and
virtual memory. If you ignore the fact that it's structured, even C
programming can be appreciated by Real Programmers. 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 at the same time (not even talking about #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 the evidence, the spirit of Real
Programming lives on in these young men and women. As long as there
are ill-defined goals, bizzare 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!
REFERENCES
[1] Feinstein, B. , "Real Men Don't Eat Quiche", New York, Pocket
Books, 1982.
[2] Wirth, N. , "Algorithms + Data Structures = Programs", Prentice
Hall, 1976.
[3] Xerox PARC editors . . .
[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 Pyschology of Computer Programming", New York,
Van Nostrand Reingold, 1971, page 110.
[6] Dijkstra, E. , "On the GREEN Language Submitted to the DoD",
Sigplan notices, Volume 3, Number 10, October 1978.
[7] Rose, Frank, "Joy of Hacking", Science 82, Volume 3, Number 9,
November 1982, pages 58-66.
[8] "The Hacker Papers", Psychology Today, August 1980.
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