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Actually, so did I! But it's been a long time, and I'd have some serious brushing up to do.
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I learned LISP when I took a set of graduate courses in AI in the late 1980's. I ported a public domain LISP interpreter called XLISP written by David Betz for MS-DOS to the microVAX I administered at work using a (cough) constructively-acquisitioned (cough) C compiler for VAX/VMS. Back in the days when men were men, women were women, and 19.2K baud VT220 terminals were the cat's meow.
Good times.
Software Zen: delete this;
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Are you telling me that men are no longer men, and that women are no longer women?!
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Given that a person's appearance, how they refer to themselves, and their genetic identity can all refer to different, er, genders, things would seem to be rather fluid.
Software Zen: delete this;
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I tried to learn Lisp inbetween my studies, forty years ago, with little success. It was available on a VAX 780 (with an unbelievable 1 megabyte of RAM...) - but the VAX wasn't very available for hobbyists
We had a 16-bit mini for hobbyist use. Some guy had made a Lisp interpreter for that CPU architecture around 1975, which we hoped to use. That failed miserably: In 1975, no one would dare to even drean about more than 32Ki words (64Ki bytes) of RAM - you would never need more than 15 address bits. In 1975, paging logic was an expensive option that very few could afford; an address was sent directly to the memory bus. With at most 32Ki words of physical RAM, the uppermost address line disappeared in thin air. So this guy got the idea to use this "wasted" bit in every pointer to hold a flag related to the pointer, rather than wasting another word to hold this flag.
In the early 80s, paging logic had become standard; it was no longer an option, and the OS depended on it. This "wasted" address bit was no longer wasted, so the flag in the Lisp interpreter was now interpreted as the most significant address bit. One of my fellow students were in contact with the guy, begging for "this small change", but was told that it was so deeply interwoven with the interpreter logic that changing it would require a complete rewrite, which was out of question.
We never got any Lisp interpreter on the hobby machine. Lisp wasn't that hot, so we didn't really push it that much.
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Call me a cynic - but I don't need developing software to be an experience or even a joyful experience, I just want it to be straightforward.
“That which can be asserted without evidence, can be dismissed without evidence.”
― Christopher Hitchens
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A team of researchers at Samsung has developed a slim-panel holographic video display that allows for viewing from a variety of angles. Holodeck it ain't
But at least this one is less likely to malfunction and let Moriarty take over the ship.
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A 6-year-old boy in India set a Guinness World Record by receiving a certification that makes him the world's youngest computer programmer. Isn't it adorable when they first say, "Send CODES plz?"
Microsoft has a certification exam for Python? What next, a Microsoft Certified Linux Engineer?
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Bravo. They beat me by two years.
Never been certified though. Just certifiable.
Real programmers use butterflies
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I remember on my coleco adam typing in all those BASIC programs from those magazines (1983 or so) but I never got even one of the long programs to run. I didn't understand a word I was typing.
I did master the:
10 print "roger "
20 goto 10
I knew to put the space after the last letter, so you can see what a genius I was.
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haha. The first usable app I wrote was for balancing checkbooks more quickly**. I did enter code from magazines but it taught me coding.
** I've always been good at streamlining workflow through software
Real programmers use butterflies
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I remember playing with a Spectrum 128k when I was a kid.
Some time later my oldest brother (almost in college) bought a Pentium 75Hz and I helped him installing Win 3.11 correctly (I was in primary)
M.D.V.
If something has a solution... Why do we have to worry about?. If it has no solution... For what reason do we have to worry about?
Help me to understand what I'm saying, and I'll explain it better to you
Rating helpful answers is nice, but saying thanks can be even nicer.
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Nelek wrote: I helped him installing Win 3.11 correctly (I was in primary)
Genius!!!
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oy
The New Microsoft(tm)
Yeah, only a matter of time.
TTFN - Kent
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Uh, I don't want to brag (well, really I do) but I beat the TRS-80[^] (that's tandy radio shack) computer at checkers (draughts[^] to those of you across the pond) when I was only 10.
And! I played black so computer went first. That's the kind of guy I am.
My secret was that I never moved any draughts in the bottom row. The computer opponent got to a point where it could make no moves and declared me the winner.
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I didn't know that passing such a certificate makes you a programmer...
Now, please raise your hand if you will employ the kid!
"The only place where Success comes before Work is in the dictionary." Vidal Sassoon, 1928 - 2012
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Gee, when I was six, all I wanted was a typewriter. My father said, "A six-year-old needs a typewriter like he needs a hole in his head." But my grandmother bought me a small 12-pitch model, which ended up seeing a lot of use.
A while before that, I had wanted a piano, but my father told me that none were for sale. So the next day I showed him the want ads. But we never got a piano.
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It's not that I was looking for more reasons to consider certifications actively harmful, but...
Did you ever see history portrayed as an old man with a wise brow and pulseless heart, weighing all things in the balance of reason?
Is not rather the genius of history like an eternal, imploring maiden, full of fire, with a burning heart and flaming soul, humanly warm and humanly beautiful?
--Zachris Topelius
Training a telescope on one’s own belly button will only reveal lint. You like that? You go right on staring at it. I prefer looking at galaxies.
-- Sarah Hoyt
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Best news I've seen in a while!
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Isn't it a little late for "breaking changes" in .Net 5? It's about to be officially released.
".45 ACP - because shooting twice is just silly" - JSOP, 2010 ----- You can never have too much ammo - unless you're swimming, or on fire. - JSOP, 2010 ----- When you pry the gun from my cold dead hands, be careful - the barrel will be very hot. - JSOP, 2013
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Amazon-subsidiary Ring is recalling hundreds of thousands of video doorbells after receiving reports of them catching fire. Isn't that a perfectly normal doorbell feature?
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Did they re-use the electronics of Samsung Note 7? that could explain a bit...
M.D.V.
If something has a solution... Why do we have to worry about?. If it has no solution... For what reason do we have to worry about?
Help me to understand what I'm saying, and I'll explain it better to you
Rating helpful answers is nice, but saying thanks can be even nicer.
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And it burns, burns, burns the Ring on fire, the Ring on fire.
Apologies to Johnny Cash.
"the debugger doesn't tell me anything because this code compiles just fine" - random QA comment
"Facebook is where you tell lies to your friends. Twitter is where you tell the truth to strangers." - chriselst
"I don't drink any more... then again, I don't drink any less." - Mike Mullikins uncle
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