I can't remember if this has been posted before, so, here it is.

I may even have posted this myself in eons ago. But, I think I am
getting that disease which makes
you forget and the name of which I have forgotten.

tony dilworth




REAL programmers

- Real programmers don't write specs -- Users should consider
themselves lucky to get any programs at all and take what they get.

- Real programmers don't comment their code. If it was hard to
write, it should be hard to read.

- Real programmers don't write application programs, they pro-
gram right down on the bare metal. Application programming
is for feebs who can't do systems programming.

- Real programmers don't eat quiche. They eat twinkies, and
szechevan food.

- Real programmers programs never work right the first time.
But if you throw them on the machine they can be patched
into working in only a few 30-hours debugging sessions.

- Real programmers never work 9 to 5. If any real programmers
are around at 9 am, it's because they were up all night.

- Real programmers don't write in Visual Basic. Actually, no
programmers write in Visual Basic, after the age of 12.

- Real programmers don't document. Documentation is for simps
who can't read the listings or the object deck.

- Real programmers don't write in Pascal, or Bliss, or Ada, or
any of those pinko computer science languages. Strong typing
is for people with weak memories.

- Real programmers know better than the users what they need.

- Real programmers think structured programming is a communist
plot.

- Real programmers don't use schedules. Schedules are for man-
ager's toadies. Real programmers like to keep their manager
in suspense.

- Real programmers think better when playing adventure.




Real Programmers Don't Use PASCAL
---------------------------------

[Ed Post, "Real Programmers Don't Use Pascal", DATAMATION, July 1983,
pp. 263-265 (Readers' Forum).]


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.



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.



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.

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].



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.

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.



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.



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
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