Re: The joy of FORTRAN

On 3/7/25 5:52 AM, The Natural Philosopher wrote:

On 07/03/2025 07:53, c186282 wrote:

On 3/6/25 2:14 PM, The Natural Philosopher wrote:

On 06/03/2025 16:55, Dan Cross wrote:

In article <Martin-20250306163721@ram.dialup.fu-berlin.de>,
Stefan Ram <ram@zedat.fu-berlin.de> wrote:

cross@spitfire.i.gajendra.net (Dan Cross) wrote or quoted:

That describes Martin's books to a T, I think.  He writes very
well, but what he writes, maybe not so much.

>
  I first got to know Robert on Usenet, in comp.objects. Later, I read
  something in his book about the difference between object-oriented
  and structured, which hits the nail on the head regarding the
  crucial point about which of the two paradigms has what advantages.
  At least 99 percent of people who talk about this topic don't get
  this point. That's why Robert is head and shoulders above Herbert
  in my book - even if Martin might make the occasional mistake.

>
I mean, two times something that is very close to zero is still
very close to zero.  :-)
>
    - Dan C.
>

No, its *twice as far away* from zero.

>
   Ok ... that CAN be a valid way of looking at it !  :-)
>
   But "still almost ZERO" also is.
>

That was of course the point.
 To make a distinction between the reality, and the narrative associated with it
 

   Just wondering ... this thread has drifted vastly
   towards old mainframes/minis that haven't existed
   for a LONG time and never will again. Whatever
   skills/experiences we had with them - great fun, but
   obsolete to the extreme except as "historical interest".
>
   Very carefully applied, some of those Old Lessons MIGHT
   inform Future Developments. Alas, arrogance/blindness
   maybe, often DON'T. With computers, only the last 5
   years seems REAL to most. A very narrow window. As
   such little is learned from the past.

 I think one thing that occurs to me every time I pick up a Pi Pico is 'if this thing had existed in WWII at this price we would have won the war a year earlier'

   Likely true.
   But they didn't.
   It was vac-tube tech then ... and 'digital' was kinda
   limited to Turing's stuff and the incipent UniVac.
   "What If" is always compelling - and a seed for many
   fun novels and such.
   Alas the MEANS ... no transistors before 1948, no ICs
   before roughly 1960. Bummer.
   Some Russian invented digital tech, with 'valves',
   in the 1920s. Another came up with at least the
   IDEA of field-effect transistors even earlier.
   BUT, the time was not right. The means were not
   there.
   A few bits of that digital survived ... adders
   and ring buffers and such. MOST was just thrown
   into the trash .......