Subject: Re: Bolt hole software I posted. Ooops!

From: [email-masked] (Peter Brooks)
Date: 2 Dec 1996 19:16:31 GMT

[email-masked] wrote:
: In article <[email-masked]>, [email-masked]
: (Bruce Holder) writes:

: >Bruce
: >  Who once had a significant program run right the first time. Twelve
: >years ago.

: That's what I loved about the "starwars" miissile killers. They were going
: to test the software at "kill" time. Now that *is* confidence!

Yeah......

: Peter
: Who had a program run right the first time, but all it did was print
: "hello world"

Pete:  Who has been known to drop his jaw at seeing one of his 5000 line 
wonders compile the first attempt.

Pete Brooks

---

From: Ron Eastes <[email-masked]>
Date: 2 Dec 1996 18:46:41 GMT

[email-masked] (Fitch R. Williams) wrote:

Fitch,

If it works, it's production. If it doesn't work, you are still testing.

Ron

>I've had one run right first time in BASIC, one in FORTRAN,
>none in PASCAL or dBASE.    I had one other I thought ran
>correctly, I was wrong, it didn't, but I couldn't tell at
>first - it was a much more clever error than most!  It was
>in dBASE II where I found more ways to trash my information
>with simple undocumented command features than at any other
>time in my life before or since!
>
>Fitch
>

---

From: Ron Eastes <[email-masked]>
Date: 4 Dec 1996 19:34:25 GMT

[email-masked] (Russ Kepler) wrote:
>In article <[email-masked]>,
>
>If you're not sure it works it's beta.
>

Russ,

My programs "ALWAYS WORK". No beta versions for me. It's just those pesky 
unanticipated results that seem to seek me out.

As I've always said, computers were designed for programmers to play 
with. They were never intended to be used by real people, to do 
productive work.

Ron

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From: [email-masked] (Peter Wiley)
Date: Thu, 5 Dec 1996 07:26:39 GMT

In article <[email-masked]> [email-masked] writes:
>Peter Wiley wrote:
>> 
>> In article <[email-masked]> [email-masked] (Russ Kepler) writes:
>> >Ron Eastes  <[email-masked]> wrote:
>> Which is when you ship it, to see if the suck^H^H^H^Hcustomers notice. If
>> they don't report any problems, it's production.
>> 
>> Peter Wiley
>
>Do you all work for Microsoft?

Nah, we're not *that* bad.

The rule those guys use is, if it *compiles*, then ship it. And sometimes
I doubt they even check that.

Peter Wiley

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From: "Alan Wood" <[email-masked]>
Date: 6 Dec 1996 04:55:15 GMT

Peter Wiley <[email-masked]> wrote in article
<[email-masked]>...

> I doubt they even check that.
	Of course I once bought a compiler (not Microsofts) that included a sample
program that if they had bothered to compile in huge memory model would
have revealed a major bug in the compiler!
Alan Wood

---

From: [email-masked] (Fitch R. Williams)
Date: Fri, 06 Dec 1996 06:26:33 GMT

>Ron

Yeah, isn't that the truth, and if those darn users wouldn't
cruddy up the server disks with their *data*, they wouldn't
need reorganizing, the SW configuration would be perfect,
and us hackers could have the full response of the system to
support our hacks - er - customized batch files to send our
jobs to the front of the printe queue - uh I meann't to
*optimize* printer queing for minimum wait times ..., and
such like of course.

Wasn't much of anything would mess up a disk farm like a
bunch of *users* fussing with ORACLE to create *Management
Information*, and sending E-mail using All-In-1 (SW
optimized to sell disks it was for sure) to crow about it to
each other.

Course to day, it is all done jillions of strategically
distributed NT choked  Pentium Servers with carefully word
smithed VU graphs with 5 or less bullets which are passed
infront of glassey eyed audiences lulled into meeting
nintendo induced state of semisommulent comma waiting to see
whose bladder gives out first for the boss to indicate if he
"likes" this or not.

Meetings, the practical alternative to work, brought to you
in color by Microsoft PowerPoint with Visio Express
graphics, object embedding and linking, and system errors
with no choice but to "press any key to lose data"!!!

This *is* progress.  Right?

Fitch
Wondering what was wrong with typewriters, mimeograph
machines, sliderules, and time to think once in a while as
opposed to continual cerebral knee jerks just to keep up
with our ability to produce charts and coordinate meeting
schedules?  Well, thinking is good, isn't it, it used to be,
what has changed except we don't seem to have any time for
it any more?

---

From: [email-masked]
Date: 3 Dec 1996 15:28:19 GMT

In article <[email-masked]>, [email-masked] (Peter

>wonders compile the first attempt.

I kneel in the prescence of the great.

Peter
Ever humble.

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From: [email-masked] (Fitch R. Williams)
Date: Sun, 08 Dec 1996 21:26:30 GMT

[email-masked] wrote:

>In article <[email-masked]>, [email-masked] (Fitch R.
>Williams) writes:

>>o

>Let's see you do this with your typewriter!

>Peter

Touche'

Once upon a time, a long time ago, I did it with radio waves
- it was called amature radio.  Didn't ever do it with a
typewriter.

Fitch

---

From: [email-masked] (Jens)
Date: Mon, 09 Dec 1996 19:54:23 -0800

[email-masked] (Fitch R. Williams) wrote:

>Mostly 2M, some 6M (until the prevelance of old 50MHz IF TVs
>in the apartment building at MSU  almost got me lynched - or
>worse).  
>
>Built all my own stuff.  Building it was much more fun than
>talking on it, probably why I'm not still doing it.  Was a
>lot less expensive than horses, sailboats, or machine shops.

Got an old HF radio kicking about ?  
We could start a metalworking group on HF.

Jens

---

From: [email-masked] (Chuck Sherwood)
Date: 10 Dec 1996 18:51:30 GMT

In article <[email-masked]>,
Fitch R. Williams <[email-masked]> wrote:

>Not packet radio - I did this in the early sxties - although
>some were doing TTY using FSK at the time.

Are you sure that you were not playing with Radio Teletype?? (RTTY).

I dont think that packet existed until the 70 or 80s. Packet as
we know it today requires a Terminal Node Controller (TNC) that
has a microprocessor in it. Hint: Micros happened in th 70s.

Digital communications modes are fairly common on today bands.
Packet radio is only one of several mode. The main distinction
of Packet, is that it allows one user to have virtual connections
to many other. Typically that one user would be a buliten board 
service (BBS).

>Built all my own stuff.  Building it was much more fun than
Rarely done today.

>lot less expensive than horses, sailboats, or machine shops.
Very true.

Anyway, we are way off the subject of this NG.....

Chuck Sherwood N9QZT
-- 
--
Chuck Sherwood
[email-masked]

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From: [email-masked] (Peter Wiley)
Date: Wed, 4 Dec 1996 10:27:29 GMT

Peter Wiley

---

From: [email-masked]
Date: 6 Dec 1996 17:53:42 GMT

Peter

---

From: [email-masked] (Peter Brooks)
Date: 6 Dec 1996 18:22:38 GMT

[email-masked] wrote:
: >Pete:  Who has been known to drop his jaw at seeing one of his 5000 line 
: >wonders compile the first attempt.

: I kneel in the prescence of the great.

Don't be that humble.  My boss actually designed the code that the 5K wonder
goes into.  I think of it as kitchen sink software; it parses instructions,
puts them into various stacks, *and* sets up an 'undo' stack to reverse
the actions when necessary.  Sorta like a 7000 line VegiMatic.  I 'simply'
took his ideas and made them work under all circumstances and such.

I think I want to be on a *looong* vacation when the boss starts to implement
the ring buffer.  I don't know what he has in mind, but it's gonna be a
lot of code.....

Pete Brooks

---

From: [email-masked]
Date: 9 Dec 1996 17:09:46 GMT

In article <[email-masked]>, [email-masked] (Fitch R.

>- it was called amature radio.  Didn't ever do it with a

No surprise that you replied. I wondered when I posted whether anyone
would get it?

Amature radio, packet radio? I had a friend who hooked his computer to a
little Icom 2M an it amazed me to see the stuff coming in as words on the
screen.

Peter

---

From: [email-masked] (Fitch R. Williams)
Date: Tue, 10 Dec 1996 05:30:40 GMT

Fitch

---

From: [email-masked] (Fitch R. Williams)
Date: Wed, 11 Dec 1996 06:02:44 GMT

>Are you sure that you were not playing with Radio Teletype?? (RTTY).

Neither, I didn't do anything but CW and AM voice - not even
SSB.  I can see how you could get the wrong message from how
I wrote it though.   What I ment was I did not do packet
radio - it didn't exist when I was a HAM in the early
sixties.  

Yes, RTTY is probably technically more accurate than saying
"doing TTY using FSK" - at the time it was done by frequency
shift keying.

>has a microprocessor in it. Hint: Micros happened in th 70s.

I know.  I went to EE school on vacume tubes, (older than
anchient things that were big, got hot, used a lot of power
just in filaments, and took up a lot of room).  I remember
when a six transistor radio was hot stuff and cost $100.00 -
and that was a lot of money at that time.  I remember real
magnetic cores, using flipflops as elements in registers,
using TTY terminals to access the timeshare mainframe  (and
coming home with a splitting headache from sitting in a room
full of them), storing my simulation models on paper tape,
the Trash 80 and audio tape drives, "V" belt driven floppy
disks, PDP 8's, booting with switches, Compucorp calculators
with "nixie tube" displays, the PET, the first time I got to
hold and use an HP35 with my own trembling hands, the Apple,
Apple II, and, believe it or not,  that the microprocessor
was invented in the 70s - though my mental media does have
some divots in it., and perhaps some age induced
permeability reduction, so reminding me doesn't hurt.  <G>  

>>Built all my own stuff.  Building it was much more fun than

I know.  Lots of HAMs at work never built even a CPO.
Appliance operating wasn't my thing  ....   and I got
interested in airplanes, my kids and motorcycles, then
sailing, my kids and RC gliders and planes, then wood
working, my kids and horses, then metal working (today).  So
many hobbies, so little time.  Sigh ....  

>Anyway, we are way off the subject of this NG.....

True.  

Fitch