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When dealing with punch cards, short variable names are a blessing.
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 so is a lighter
(this program definitely did not originate on punch cards, it was on an Apple ][e!)
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Steven A. Lowe wrote: so is a lighter
Punch cards are great for the fireplace on cold winter nights 
About your reference to the Apple ][e, I remember my old Commodore 64 and 128 were limited to only the first characters counting in the variable name.
"The clue train passed his station without stopping." - John Simmons / outlaw programmer
"Real programmers just throw a bunch of 1s and 0s at the computer to see what sticks" - Pete O'Hanlon
"Not only do you continue to babble nonsense, you can't even correctly remember the nonsense you babbled just minutes ago." - Rob Graham
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hmmm...i don't remember that being a limit of the macro-assembler, but then again i don't remember a lot of things from way back then
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I don't recall what the limit was in the macro assembler, but in Commodore Basic it was only the first two characters counting.
"The clue train passed his station without stopping." - John Simmons / outlaw programmer
"Real programmers just throw a bunch of 1s and 0s at the computer to see what sticks" - Pete O'Hanlon
"Not only do you continue to babble nonsense, you can't even correctly remember the nonsense you babbled just minutes ago." - Rob Graham
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Well, here we have one big difference between interpreters and assemblers / compilers.
An interpreter, like the good old BASIC, must hold the source in RAM, as well as every variable in use. On my old machine, it had only 4k for the interpreter AND the program AND the variables, it was the same: Better live with short variables and without comments than getting an out of memory error before the program is complete.
In assembly programs or with a compiler this is no problem. Comments and variable names only make the source file longer, but both don't make it into the executable.
A while ago he asked me what he should have printed on my business cards. I said 'Wizard'.
I read books which nobody else understand. Then I do something which nobody understands. After that the computer does something which nobody understands. When asked, I say things about the results which nobody understand. But everybody expects miracles from me on a regular basis. Looks to me like the classical definition of a wizard.
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CDP1802 wrote: we have one big difference between interpreters and assemblers / compilers.
Oh yes, that was my first lesson in the difference between compilers and interpreters. Writing a program in the old Commodore Basic, then write the equivalent - sometimes by hand - in assembly, and what a bit of difference that was
I did get my first Intel based machine as a high school graduation present, in 1991, an Intel 80386-DX25mhz box. I had qbasic and Microsoft Quick Basic 4.5 both installed on the machine. Bit of a performance difference between those two, back then.
"The clue train passed his station without stopping." - John Simmons / outlaw programmer
"Real programmers just throw a bunch of 1s and 0s at the computer to see what sticks" - Pete O'Hanlon
"Not only do you continue to babble nonsense, you can't even correctly remember the nonsense you babbled just minutes ago." - Rob Graham
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Well, I guess I tossed myself into the cold water. It was 1978, I was 12 years old and, as always, had a little difference of opinion with my parents. So I spent the day out of harm's way at a local mall. There was a little Radio Shack where they had just unpacked a TRS-80 Model I. They made the mistake to leave that that thing unattended and so they had me as a guest all day, trying to figure out what you can do with a computer.
And when I finally got home, my poor parents were surprised to learn that the previous issues were totally irrelevant and that getting a computer was now the highest priority
Their answer was a simple 'no', but I kept harassing them until they got me a kit for 100$. It was an Elf II with tremendous 256 bytes RAM, a hex keypad and a video resolution of 64 x 32 pixels (monochrome). So it was no neat but slow BASIC for me, it was entering machine code with the hexpad. And my parents soon got longer lists of desperately required hardware.
A while ago he asked me what he should have printed on my business cards. I said 'Wizard'.
I read books which nobody else understand. Then I do something which nobody understands. After that the computer does something which nobody understands. When asked, I say things about the results which nobody understand. But everybody expects miracles from me on a regular basis. Looks to me like the classical definition of a wizard.
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I first learned programming in BASIC-Plus on a PDP-11. Unless you issued the EXTEND command, variable names were limited to one character and perhaps one digit. (Well there could also be a % or $ too.)
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PIEBALDconsult wrote: there could also be a % or $
I remember that. $ for strings, and % for integer if I recall correctly. Funny thing, I still have the old Commodore sitting in the eave/storage thingee, 10 feet away from this desk. Maybe I'll dig it out one of these days
"The clue train passed his station without stopping." - John Simmons / outlaw programmer
"Real programmers just throw a bunch of 1s and 0s at the computer to see what sticks" - Pete O'Hanlon
"Not only do you continue to babble nonsense, you can't even correctly remember the nonsense you babbled just minutes ago." - Rob Graham
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Paul Conrad wrote: % for integer
Right, but we all said, "Why would we ever want to use an integer? Reals will do whatever we need."
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Do it. It's fun to see the old machines going again. But also a bit scary, how primitive things were back then and how much we have been spoiled by the comfort of modern machines.
Let's see, which one am I going to use tonight? The old Elf II? Atari 400? Or shall I take the Atari 800 XL? Or perhaps the 1040 ST? ....
A while ago he asked me what he should have printed on my business cards. I said 'Wizard'.
I read books which nobody else understand. Then I do something which nobody understands. After that the computer does something which nobody understands. When asked, I say things about the results which nobody understand. But everybody expects miracles from me on a regular basis. Looks to me like the classical definition of a wizard.
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CDP1802 wrote: Do it. It's fun to see the old machines going again.
I'm going to. Had a friend back in college write his own lynx-like browser for his C128. It was pretty cool.
"The clue train passed his station without stopping." - John Simmons / outlaw programmer
"Real programmers just throw a bunch of 1s and 0s at the computer to see what sticks" - Pete O'Hanlon
"Not only do you continue to babble nonsense, you can't even correctly remember the nonsense you babbled just minutes ago." - Rob Graham
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short variable names are always a blessing.
If the Lord God Almighty had consulted me before embarking upon the Creation, I would have recommended something simpler.
-- Alfonso the Wise, 13th Century King of Castile.
This is going on my arrogant assumptions. You may have a superb reason why I'm completely wrong.
-- Iain Clarke
[My articles]
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sounds like the kind of thing you'd get from a machine-ported app.
i worked at a place that had some C code which did quadratic optimization. but nobody could make any sense of the C, because it had been machine-translated from FORTRAN - all the variables were "a", "b", "c", etc., and the code was full of GOTOs and statics.
we eventually bought a C# implementation.
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sadyly, it was hand-written - I know the professor that wrote it. All of his programs are written that way. 
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A place where I used to work had a lot of code with variable names like a, aa, b, bb, etc. Their reason? The time they saved by not typing out a longer variable name would add up to a significant time savings over the course of a year. They also saw nothing wrong with method names like "DoIt".
You think that these things would make the code to understand? Their answer to that objection was "A good programmer can figure out what the code does!".
I don't work there anymore, for obvious reasons  .
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a while back I visited a web site that gave me a javascript error on load.
curious, i looked at the page source. The function with the bug was named "JoshIsCool"
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Yeah, Josh is so cool that his javascript won't even load 
Bill W
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Steven A. Lowe wrote: BB21
Is he a fan(atic) and lunatic user of Microsoft Excel (spreadsheet program) which has this AA, BB type arrangements for its grid?
Vasudevan Deepak Kumar
Personal Homepage
Tech Gossips
All the world's a stage,
And all the men and women merely players.
They have their exits and their entrances;
And one man in his time plays many parts... --William Shakespeare
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No, actually he's a Mac fan, and the program in question is older than spreadsheets...
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Hey...
I resemble that remark.
Andrew
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Real men don't need variable names! Real men use memory addresses!
To those who understand, I extend my hand.
To the doubtful I demand: Take me as I am.
Not under your command, I know where I stand.
I won't change to fit yout plan. Take me as I am.
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I am refactoring a project that has basic unit conversion stored in a sql database along with everything else. Each time a business object gets loaded from the database, a separate call to the database is made to get the 3 units that belong to the business object.
When is the last time any of these natural conversion has changed? Are they suddenly going to change the amount of milligrams in a gram, or pounds in a ton?
If there were any conversions that were irregular like grams in a case or something like that, I understand, but for the natural conversions? The worst part is this database is almost always called over a VPN connection, so bandwidth is critical. The previous programmer could have at least cached the data on the client side or something...
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Today's lesson is brought to you by the word "niggardly". Remember kids, don't attribute to racism what can be explained by Scandinavian language roots.
-- Robert Royall
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