Real Programmers Don't Use Pascal
[ A letter to the editor of
Datamation, volume 29 number 7,
July 1983. I've long ago lost my dog-eared photocopy, but I believe
this was written (and is copyright) by Ed Post, Tektronix,
Wilsonville OR USA.
The story of Mel is a related article. ]
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 who understood computer programming, and the
Quiche Eaters were the ones who 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.)
