Write only programming

From: Douglas Quebbeman <dhquebbeman_at_theestopinalgroup.com>
Date: Fri Mar 1 10:35:59 2002

> On Fri, 1 Mar 2002, Douglas Quebbeman wrote:
>
> > Edward Yourdon recounts an episode in one of his textbooks about a
> > large assembly language program that was comment-free, except for
> > a single line (don't know the real processor so I'm faking the
> > instruction):
>
> Edward Yourdon. Isn't he the idiot that played Chicken Little before the
> new "millennium" and screamed that everything run by computer was going
> to break and we were all doomed as a species and we should all buy
> thousands of gallons of water and tons of food and bury them along with
> ourselves in a plastic bin somewhere out in the desert?

perhaps, although that sounds more like james martin's style...

Ken Olsen also said that no one would ever want a computer in
their home, nonetheless the products created during his tenure
remain very important, especially to people here.

Hindsight's 20-20, and lots of people get stuck in their paradigms...

> I don't think anything he says (or has ever said) has much relevance
> anymore.

No, like Brooks, he made points about the development of large-scale
projects which remain valid. Yourdon certainly wasn't alone in the
Y2K chiken-little mentality... and I don't feel inclined to consign
them, lock, stock, and barrel, to perdition, not quite yet, anyway...

:)
-dq
Received on Fri Mar 01 2002 - 10:35:59 GMT