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Is software getting better or worse? Some say we are making software ever more bloated. Define better
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Define worse
Decrease the belief in God, and you increase the numbers of those who wish to play at being God by being “society’s supervisors.” Such “supervisors” deny the existence of divine standards, but are very serious about imposing their own standards on society.-Neal A. Maxwell
You must accept 1 of 2 basic premises: Either we are alone in the universe or we are not alone. Either way, the implications are staggering!-Wernher von Braun /xml>
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Most of what he says is just plain wrong:
Garbage collection, runtime typing, closures, and object inheritance all existed in some form 40 years ago.
40 years ago, I was programming BASIC on a PDP/11 with punch tape for storage.
IDEs: Okay. I suppose they’ve helped a little.
A little? Come on. Threaded debugging, breakpoints, variable inspection, all in a visual environment where what you're looking at is your code, not some obtuse command line interface? I think that's a lot, and that's just the tip of the iceberg.
Discover and stitch components together by what they mean, not their particular API. It will be mind blowing if they can get this to actually work.
There he has it right. And that's what HOPE (see sig) is about. The reality though is that it isn't that easy. I still write tons of imperative code because "stitching together by meaning" is actually a non-trivial problem -- think about how functional programming is a shift in how you think about programming. Programming by meaning is another huge mental shift.
Marc
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Marc Clifton wrote: Garbage collection
Garbage collection did exist 40 years ago ...
... FORTRAN punch cards having buggy code were indeed garbage - they need to be physically collected and disposed somewhere 
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Marc Clifton wrote: HOPE (see sig)
Contributors Wanted for Higher Order Programming Project!
HOPP or Higher Order Programming Effort?
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Bassam Abdul-Baki wrote: HOPP or Higher Order Programming Effort?
Actually, the E is Environment. Never actually realized the HOPP issue - thanks for pointing that out!
Marc
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GC was introduced by LISP by John McCarthy in 1959.
Object Inheritance was first (to my knowledge) introduced by Sketchpad, in 1963, as a language concept in Simula-67 introduced in 1967.
Closures wer fully implemented first by the PAL language in 1970.
All over 40 years ago.
Just because you were using BASIC on a PDP/11 with punch tape doesn't mean it didn't exist.
(I was busy playing with LEGO and hiding behind the sofa when Dr Who was on).
Smalltalk introduced most of the innovations in IDEs in 1980. Many aspects are still not available to the mainstream.
Those who cannot learn from history are condemned to repeat it.
There is actually a very good talk by Alan Kay (I think) on exactly this subject, where he points out that the majority of programmers are not aware who Douglas Englebart, Ivan Sutherland, John McCarthy, Kristen Nygard are, and many more. Imagine if most physicists could not name Newton and Einstein.
Programming is still in its idiocy infancy, and many of us need to grow up and learn its history so we can start improving on it instead of recreating it.
"If you don't fail at least 90 percent of the time, you're not aiming high enough."
Alan Kay.
modified 15-Jul-15 5:54am.
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#define better
are you happy now?
Geek code v 3.12 {
GCS d--- s-/++ a- C++++ U+++ P- L- E-- W++ N++ o+ K- w+++ O? M-- V? PS+ PE- Y+ PGP t++ 5? X R++ tv-- b+ DI+++ D++ G e++>+++ h--- r++>+++ y+++*
Weapons extension: ma- k++ F+2 X
}
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Much. Thank you! 
TTFN - Kent
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If you're of a certain age—too young for Doonesbury, too old for Rugrats—then chances are your first taste of satirical cartooning came from Bloom County. The most important news of the day
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Awesome news.
Posted from my Banana 3000 computer.
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The Truck Factor designates the minimal number of developers that have to be hit by a truck (or quit) before a project is incapacitated. CP Newsletter has a moped factor of 1
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They have the same for programme managers - the Chicxulub[^] factor. I've been on projects where that number has topped double digits...
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Yeah, but there you don't need the meteor/asteroid to break the project, you want the meteor/asteroid to strike.
TTFN - Kent
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Kent Sharkey wrote: CP Newsletter has a moped factor of 1
Ahh, quit your mopin'!
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When it comes to landmark achievements in space exploration, tomorrow — July 14 — will be a date for the history books as the day humanity reached Pluto for the first time. Planet or not, here they come
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Monmouth University in New Jersey is holding a special event tomorrow to celebrate and watch the coverage.
Q. What would you call a government on Pluto?
A. A Plutocracy!
The difficult we do right away...
...the impossible takes slightly longer.
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Where's the :boo: CPicon? 
TTFN - Kent
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I can't wait for the conspiracy theorists to start claiming everything was photographed on a sound stage...
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Paul M Watt wrote: I can't wait for the conspiracy theorists to start claiming everything was photographed on a sound stage...
This isn't the sixties. Everything is simulated on a computer now. It's just better faked, that's all.
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Microsoft's head of Windows marketing has confirmed that PC buyers won't be able to get one with Windows 10 pre-installed on that launch date. I'll have to wait a WHOLE DAY? That's it, I'm moving to Linux!
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Kent Sharkey wrote: The earliest you can receive a PC with Windows 10 pre-installed is July 30
Which year ? 
Patrice
“Everything should be made as simple as possible, but no simpler.” Albert Einstein
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Microsoft has been building a new cloud service and light-weight apps, Project GigJam, on the sly for several years. Here's what's under the covers. OK, I have to apologize to InfoPath when I called it "Microsoft's worst name ever."
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Everytime I see GigJam I think of figjam[^]
cheers
Chris Maunder
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