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REAL PROGRAMMERS DON'T WRITE PASCAL
Back in the good ole days -- the "Golden Era" of computers, it was easy
to seperate the real men from the boys (sometimes called "Real Men" and
"Quiche Eaters" in the literature). During this period, the Real Men were the
ones that 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 talked in capital letters, you understand. 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.
But, as usual, times change. We are faced today with a world in which
little old ladies can get computers in their microwave ovens, 12-year old kids
can blow Real Men out of the water playing Asteroids and Pac-Man, and anyone
can buy and understand their very own personal computer. The Real Programmer
is in danger of becoming extinct, of being replaced by high-school students
with TRS-80's.
There is a clear need to point out the differences between the typical
high-school junior Pac-Man player and a Real Programmer. If this difference
is made clear, it will give those kids someting to aspire to -- a role model,
a Father Figure. It will also help to explain to the employers of Real
Programmers why it would be a mistake to replace the Real Programmers on their
staff with a 12-year old Pac-Man player (at very considerable salary savings).
LANGUAGES
The easiest way to tell a Real Programmer from the crowd is by the
programming language he or she uses. Real Programmers use FORTRAN. Quiche
Eaters use Pascal. Nicklaus Wirth, the designer of Pascal, gave a talk once
at which he was asked "How do you pronounce your name?" He replied, "You can
call me by name, pronouncing it "Veert", or you call call me by value,
"Worth"." One can tell immediately from this comment that Nicklaus Wirth is a
Quiche Eater. The only parameter passing mechanism that Real Programmers
endorse is "call by value-return", as implemented in the IBM/370 FORTRAN G and
H compilers. Real Programmers don't need all those abstract concepts to get
their jobs done -- they are perfectly happy with a keypunch, a FORTRAN IV
compiler, and a beer.
* Real Programmers do List Processing in FORTRAN.
* Real Programmers do String Manipulation in FORTRAN.
* Real Programmers do Accounting (if they do it at all) in FORTRAN.
* Real Programmers do Artificial Intelligence programs in FORTRAN.
If you can't do it in FORTRAN, do it in assembly language. If you can't
do it in assembly language, it isn't worth doing.
STRUCTURED PROGRAMMING
The academics in computer science have gotten into the "structured
programming" rut over the past several years. They claim that programs are
more easily understood if the programmer uses some special language constructs
and techniques. They don't all agree on exactly which constructs, of course,
and the examples they use to show their particular point of view invariably
fit on a single page of some obscure journal or another -- clearly not enough
of an example to convince anyone. When I got out of school, I thought I was
the best programmer in the world. I could write an unbeatable tic-tac-toe
program, use five different computer languages, and create 1000-line programs
that WORKED (really)!!! Then I got out into the Real World. My first task in
the Real world was to read and understand a 200,000 line FORTRAN program, then
speed it up by a factor of two. Any Real Programmer will tell you that all
the Structured Coding in the world won't help you solve a problem like that --
it takes actual talent. Some quick observations on Real Programmers and
Structured Programming:
* Real Programmers aren't afraid to use GOTO's.
* Real Programmers can write five-page long DO loops without getting
confused.
* Real Programmers like Arithmetic IF statements -- they make the code
more interesting.
* Real Programmers write self-modifying code, especially if they can
save 20 nanoseconds in the middle of a tight loop.
* Real Programmers don't need comments -- the code is obvious.
* Since FORTRAN doesn't have a structured IF, REPEAT ... UNTIL, or
CASE statement, Real Programmers don't have to worry about not using
them. Besides, all those structures can be simulated, when
necessary, by using assigned GOTO's.
Data Structures have also gotten a lot of press lately. Abstract Data
Types, Structures, Pointers, Lists, and Strings have become popular in certain
circles. Nicklaus Wirth (the aforementioned Quiche Eater) actually managed to
write an entire book (2) contending that you could write program based on Data
Structures, instead of the other way around. As all Real Programmers know,
the only useful Data Structure is the ARRAY. Strings, Lists, Structrures,
Sets -- they are all just special cases of Arrays and con be treated that way
just as easily without messing up your programming language with all sorts of
complications. The worst thing about fancy data types is that you have to
declare them, and Real Programming Languages, as we all know, have implicit
typing based on the first letter of the (six character) variable name.
OPERATING SYSTEMS
What kind of operating system does the Real Programmer use? CP/M? God
forbid -- CP/M, after all, is basically a toy operating system. Even little
old ladies and grade school students can use and understand CP/M.
UNIX is a lot more complicated of course -- the typical UNIX hacker never
can remember what the <print> command is called this week. But when it gets
right down to it, UNIX is a glorified video game. People don't do <serious>
work on UNIX systems -- they send jokes around the world on UUCP-net, and
write adventure games and research papers.
No, your Real Programmer uses OS/370. A good programmer can find and
understand the description of the IJK305I error he just got in the JCL manual.
A great programmer can write JCL without refering to the JCL manual at all. A
truly outstanding programmer can find bugs buried in a six-Megabyte core dump
without using a hex calculator (I have actually seen this done).
OS/370 is a truly remarkable operating system. It's possible to destroy
days of work with a single misplaced space (actually, this is also true of
UNIX), so alertness in the programming staff is encouraged. The best way to
approach the system is through a keypunch. Some people claim that there is a
Time Sharing system that runs on OS/370, but after careful study I have come
to the conclusion that they were mistaken.
PROGRAMMING TOOLS
What kind of tools does a Real Programmer use? In theory, a Real
Programmer could run his programs by keying them into the front panel of the
computer. Back in the days when computers <had> front panels, this was
actually done occasionally. Your typical Real Programmer knew the entire
bootstrap loader by memory in hex, and toggled it in whenever his program
destroyed the bootstrap. Back then, memory was memory -- it didn't go away
when the power went off. Today, memory either forgets things when you don't
want it to, or remembers things long after they're best forgotten. Legend has
it that Seymour Cray (who invented the Cray-1 supercomputer, and most of
Control Data's computers) actually toggled the first operating system for the
CDC-7600 in on the front panel from memory when it was first powered on.
Seymour, needless to say, is a Real Programmer.
One of my favorite Real Programmers was a systems programmer at Texas
Instruments. One day, he got a long-distance call from a user whose system
had crashed in the middle of saving some important work. Jim was able to
repair the damage over the telephone, getting the user to toggle in disk I/O
instructions at the front panel, repairing system tables in hex, reading
register contents back over the telephone. The moral of the story: while a
Real Programmer usually includes a keypunch and line printer in his toolkit,
he can get along with just a front panel and a telephone in emergencies.
In some companies, text editing no longer consists of ten engineers
standing in line to use an 029 keypunch. In fact, the building I work in
doesn't contain a single keypunch. The Real Programmer in this situation has
to work with a "text editor" program. Most systems supply several text
editors to select from, and the Real Programmer must be careful to pick one
that reflects his personal style. Many people believe that the best text
editors in the world were written at Xerox Palo Alto Research Center for use
on their Alto and Dorado computers (3). Unfortunately, no Real Programmer
would use a computer whose operating system is called SmallTalk, and would
certainly never talk to the computer with a mouse.
Some of the concepts in these Xerox editors have been incorporated into
editors running on more reasonable operating systems -- EMACS and VI being
two. The problem with these editors is that Real Programmers consider "what
you see is what your get" is just as bad a concept in Text Editing as it is in
women. No, the Real Programmer wants a "you asked for it, you got it" text
editor -- complicated, cryptic, powerful, unforgiving, and dangerous. TECO,
to be precise.
It has been observed that a TECO command sequence more closely resembles
transmission-line noise than readable text (4). One of the more entertaining
games to play with TECO is to type your name in as a command line and try to
guess what it does. Just about any possible typing error while talking with
TECO will probably destroy yuour program, or even worse, introduce subtle and
mysterious bugs in a once working subroutine.
For this reason, Real Programmers are reluctant to actually edit a
program that is close to working. They find it much easier instead to just
patch the binary object code directly, using a wonderful program called
SUPERZAP (or its equivalent on non-IBM machines). This works so well that
many working programs on IBM systems bear no relation to the original FORTRAN
code. In many cases, the original source code is no longer available. When
it comes time to fix a program like this, no manager would even think of
sending anyone less than a Real Programmer to do the job -- no Quiche Eating
Structured Programmer would even know where to start. This is called "job
security".
Here are some programming tools that Real Programmers <don't> use:
* FORTRAN preprocessors like MORTRAN and RATFOR. These are the
Cuisinarts of programming -- great for making Quiche. See the
comments on Structured Programming.
* Source language debuggers. Real Programmers can read core dumps.
* Compilers with array bounds checking. They stifle creativity,
destroy most of the interesting uses for the EQUIVALENCE statement,
and make it impossible to modify the operating system code with
negative subscripts. Worst of all, bounds checking is inefficient.
* Source code maintenance systems. A Real Programmer keeps the code
locked up in a card file, because it implies that the owner cannot
leave important programs unguarded (5).
THE REAL PROGRAMMER AT WORK
Where does the typical Real Programmer work? What kind of programs are
worthy of the efforts of so talented an individual? You can be sure that no
Real Programmer should be caught dead writing accounts-receivable programs in
COBOL, or sorting mailing lists for <People> magazine. A Real Programmer
wants tasks of earth-shaking importance (literally!).
* Real Programmers work for Los Alamos National Laboratory, writing
atomic bomb simulations to run on Cray-1 supercomputers.
* Real Programmers work for the National Security Agency, decoding
Russian transmissions.
* It was largely due to the efforts of thousands of Real Programmers
working for NASA that our boys got to the moon and back before the
Russkies.
* Real Programmers programmed the computers on the Space Shuttle.
* Real Programmers are at work for Boeing, designing the operating
systems for cruise missiles.
Some of the most awesome Real Programmers of all work at the Jet
Propulsion Laboratory in California. Many of them know the entire operating
system of the Pioneer and Voyager spacecraft by heart. With a combination of
large ground-based FORTRAN programs and small spacecraft-based assembly
language programs, they are able to do incredible feats of navigation and
improvisation -- hitting ten-kilometer wide windows at Saturn after six years
in space, repairing or bypassing damaged sensor platforms, radios, and
batteries. Allegedly, a Real Programmer managed to tuck a pattern-matching
program into a few hundred bytes of unused memory in the Voyager spacecraft
that searched for, located, and photographed a new moon of Jupiter.
The current plan for the Galileo spacecraft is to use a gravity-assist
trajectory past Mars on the way to Jupiter. This trajectory passes 80 +/- 3
kilometers of the surface of Mars. Nobody is going to trust a Pascal program
(or a Pascal Programmer for that matter) for navigation to those tolerances.
As you can tell, many of the world's Real Programmers work for the U.S.
Government -- mainly the Defense Department. This is as it should be.
Recently, however, a black cloud has formed on the Real Programmers' horizon.
It seems that some highly placed Quiche Eaters at the Defense Department
decided that all Defence programs should be written in some grand unified
language called Ada ((C) DoD). For a while, it seemed that Ada was destined
to become a language which went against all the precepts of Real Programming
-- a language with structure, a language with data types, strong typing, and
semicolons. In short, a language designed to cripple the creativity of the
typical Real Programmer. Fortunately, the language which the DoD adopted has
engough interesting features to make it approachable -- it's incredibly
complex, includes methods for messing with the operating system and
rearranging memory, and Edger Dijkstra doesn't like it (6). Dijkstra, as I'm
sure you know, was the author of "The Go To Considered Harmful" -- a landmark
work in programming methodology, applauded by Pascal Programmers and Quiche
Eaters alike. Besides, the determined Real Programmer can write FORTRAN
programs in any language.
Real Programmers might compromise their principles and work on something
slightly more trivial that the destruction of life as we know it, providing
there's enough money in it. There are several Real Programmers writing video
games at Atari, for example (but not playing them -- a Real Programmer knows
how to beat the machine every time -- no challenge in that). Everybody at
LucasFilms is a Real Programmer (it would be crazy to turn down the money of
fifty million Star Trek fans). The proportion of Real Programmers in Computer
Graphics is somewhat lower than the norm, mainly because nobody has found a
use for Computer Graphics yet. On the other hand, all Computer Graphics
programming is done in FORTRAN, so there are a fair number of people doing
Graphics in order to avoid having to write COBOL programs.
THE REAL PROGRAMMER AT PLAY
Generally, the Real Programmer plays the same way as he works -- with
computers. The Real Programmer is constantly amazed that his employer
actually pays him for what he would be doing for fun anyway (although he is
careful not to express this opinion out loud). Ocassionally, a Real
Programmer does step out of the office for a breath of fresh air and a beer or
two. Some tips on recognizing Real Programmers away from the computer room:
* At a party, the Real Programmers are the ones in the corner talking
about operating system security and how to get around it.
* At a football game, the Real Programmer is the one comparing the
plays against a simulation printed on 11 by 14 fanfold paper.
* At the beach, the Real Programmer is the one drawing flowcharts in
the sand.
* At a funeral, the Real Programmer is the one saying "Poor George.
And he almost had the sort routine working before the coronary".
* In a grocery store, the Real Programmer is the one who insists on
running the cans past the laser checkout scanner himself, because he
never could trust keypunch operators to get it right the first time.
THE REAL PROGRAMMER'S NATURAL HABITAT
What sort of environment does the Real Programmer function best in? This
is an important question for the managers of Real Programmers. Considering
the amount of money it costs to keep a Real Programmer on the staff, it's best
to put him or her in an environment where they can actually get the work done.
The typical Real Programmer lives in front of a computer terminal.
Surrounding this terminal are:
* Listings of all the programs the Real Programmer has ever worked on,
piled in roughly cronological order on every flat surface in the
office.
* Some half-dozen or so partly filled cups of cold coffee.
Ocassionally there will be cigarrette butts floating in the coffee.
In some cases, the cups will contain Orange Crush.
* Unless the Real Programmer is very good, there will be copies of the
OS JCL manual and the Principles of Operation open at some
particularly interesting pages.
* Taped to the wall is a line-printer Snoopy calandar for the year
1969.
* Strewn about the floor are several wrappers for peanut butter filled
cheese bars -- of the type that are made pre-stale at the bakery so
that they can't get any worse while waiting in the vending machine.
* Hiding in the top left-hand drawer of the desk is a stash of double-
stuff Oreos for special occasions.
* Underneath the Oreos is the flow-charting template, left there by
the previous occupant of the office. Real Programmers write
programs, not documentation -- leave that to maintenance people.
The Real Programmer is capable of working thirty, fourty, even fifty
hours at a stretch, under intense pressure. In fact, the Real Programmer
prefers it that way. Bad response time doesn't bother the Real Programmer --
it provides the chance to catch a little sleep between compiles. If there is
not enough schedule pressure on the Real Programmer, he tends to make things
more challenging by working on some small but interesting part of the problem
for the first nine weeks, then finishing the rest in the last week, in two or
three fifty-hour marathons. This not only impresses the hell out of the Real
Programmer's manager who was despairing of ever getting the project done on
time, but also creates a convenient excuse for not doing the documentation.
In general:
* No Real Programmer works nine to five (unless its the ones at night).
* A Real Programmer might or might not know the name of their spouse.
The Real Programmer does, however, know the entire EBCDIC (or ASCII)
code table.
* Real Programmers don't know how to cook. Grocery stores aren't open
at three o'clock in the morning. Real Programmers survive on
Twinkies and coffee.
THE FUTURE
What of the future? It is a mattter of some concern to Real Programmers
that the latest generation of computer programmers are not being brought up
with the same outlook on life as their elders. Many of them have never seen a
computer with a front panel. Hardly anyone graduating from school these days
can do hex arithmetic without a calculator. College graduates these days are
soft -- protected from the realities of programming by source level debuggers,
text editors that count parentheses, and "user friendly" operationg systems.
Worst of all, some of these alleged "computer Scientists" manage to get
degrees without ever learning FORTRAN! Are we destined to become an industry
of UNIX hackers and Pascal programmers?
From my experience, I can only report that the future is bright for Real
Programmers everywhere. Neither OS/370 nor FORTRAN show any signs of dying
out, despite all the efforts of Pascal programmers the world over. Even more
subtle tricks, like adding structured programming constructs to FORTRAN, have
failed. Oh sure, some computer vendors have come out with FORTRAN-77
compilers, but every one of them has a way of converting it back to a FORTRAN-
66 compiler at the drop of an option card -- to compile DO loops the way God
intended.
Even UNIX might not be as hard on Real Programmers as it once was. The
latest release of UNIX has the potential of an operating system worthy of any
Real Programmer -- two different and subtly incompatible user interfaces, an
arcane and complicated teletype drive, and virtual memory. If you ignore the
fact that it's structured, even C programming can be appreciated by Real
Programmers. After all, there's no type checking, variable names are seven
(ten? eight?) characters long, and the added bonus of the Pointer data type is
thrown in -- like having the best parts of FORTRAN and assembly language in
one place (not even talking about #define).
No, the future isn't all that bad. Why, in the last few years, the
popular press has even commented on the bright new crop of computer nerds and
hackers ((7) and (8)) leaving places like Stanford and MIT for the Real World.
From all evidence, the spirit of Real Programming lives on in these young men
and women. As long as there are ill-defined goals, bizarre bugs, and
unrealistic schedules, there will be Real Programmers willing to jump in and
Solve the Problem, saving the documentation for later. Long live FORTRAN!
REFERENCES
(1) Feirstein, B., <Real Men Don't Eat Quiche>, New York, Pocket books,
1982
(2) Wirth, N., <Algorithms + Data Structures = Programs>, Prentice Hall,
1976
(3) Xerox PARC editors . . .
(4) Finseth, C., <Theory and Practice of Text Editors -- or -- a
Cookbook for an EMACS>, B.S. thesis, MIT/LCS/TM-165, Massachusetts
Institute of Technology, May 1980
(5) Weinberg, G. <The Psychology of Computer Programming>, New York, Van
Nostrand Reinhold, 1971, page 110
(6) Dijkstra, E. <On the GREEN Language Submitted to the DoD>, Sigolan
notices, Volume 3, Number 10, October 1978
(7) Rose, Frank, <Joy of Hacking>, Science 82 Volume 3, Number 9,
November 1982, pages 58-66
(8) <The Hacker Papers>., Psychology Today, August 1980