Source : Free On-Line Dictionary of Computing

Real Programmers Don't Use Pascal
     
         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
        that understood computer programming, and the Quiche Eaters
        were the ones that 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.)
     
        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
        even understand their very own Personal Computer.  The Real
        Programmer is in danger of becoming extinct, of being replaced
        by high-school students with {TRASH-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
        these kids something to aspire to -- a role model, a Father
        Figure.  It will also help explain to the employers of Real
        Programmers why it would be a mistake to replace the Real
        Programmers on their staff with 12-year-old Pac-Man players
        (at a 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 to pronounce his name.  He replied, "You can either call
        me by name, pronouncing it 'Veert', or call me by value,
        'Worth'."  One can tell immediately from this comment that
        Nicklaus Wirth is a Quiche Eater.  The only parameter passing
        mechanism endorsed by Real Programmers is
        call-by-value-return, as implemented in the {IBM 370}
        {Fortran-G} and H compilers.  Real programmers don't need all
        these 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, they can be simulated when necessary
        using {assigned GOTOs}.
     
        Data Structures have also gotten a lot of press lately.
        Abstract Data Types, Structures, Pointers, Lists, and Strings
        have become popular in certain circles.  Wirth (the
        above-mentioned Quiche Eater) actually wrote an entire book
        [2] contending that you could write a 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, structures, sets - these are all special cases
        of arrays and can be treated that way just as easily without
        messing up your programing 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 is used by a Real Programmer?
        CP/M?  God forbid - CP/M, after all, is basically a toy
        operating system.  Even little old ladies and grade school
        students can understand and use 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 his JCL manual.  A great programmer can write JCL
        without referring to the manual at all.  A truly outstanding
        programmer can find bugs buried in a 6 megabyte {core dump}
        without using a hex calculator.  (I have actually seen this
        done.)
     
        OS is a truly remarkable operating system.  It's possible to
        destroy days of work with a single misplaced space, so
        alertness in the programming staff is encouraged.  The best
        way to approach the system is through a keypunch.  Some people
        claim 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 it got destroyed by
        his program.  (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 better forgotten.)  Legend has it that {Seymore
        Cray}, inventor of the Cray I supercomputer and most of
        Control Data's computers, actually toggled the first operating
        system for the CDC7600 in on the front panel from memory when
        it was first powered on.  Seymore, needless to say, is a Real
        Programmer.
     
        One of my favorite Real Programmers was a systems programmer
        for 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 phone, 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 phone.  The moral of this
        story: while a Real Programmer usually includes a keypunch and
        lineprinter 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 do his 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 ever use a computer whose operating system is
        called SmallTalk, and would certainly not talk to the computer
        with a mouse.
     
        Some of the concepts in these Xerox editors have been
        incorporated into editors running on more reasonably named
        operating systems - {Emacs} and {VI} being two.  The problem
        with these editors is that Real Programmers consider "what you
        see is what you get" to be just as bad a concept in Text
        Editors as it is in women.  No the Real Programmer wants a
        "you asked for it, you got it" text editor - complicated,
        cryptic, powerful, unforgiving, 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 your 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 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 anything 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".
     
        Some programming tools NOT used by Real Programmers:
     
        Fortran preprocessors like {MORTRAN} and {RATFOR}.  The
        Cuisinarts of programming - great for making Quiche.  See
        comments above 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 EQUIVALENCE, 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 his
        code locked up in a card file, because it implies that its
        owner cannot leave his 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 would 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 I
        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 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,
        one Real Programmer managed to tuck a pattern-matching program
        into a few hundred bytes of unused memory in a 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 within 80 +/-3 kilometers of the
        surface of Mars.  Nobody is going to trust a Pascal program
        (or a Pascal programmer) for navigation to these 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 Programmer horizon.  It seems that some highly
        placed Quiche Eaters at the Defense Department decided that
        all Defense 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 that 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 adopted by
        DoD has enough interesting features to make it approachable --
        it's incredibly complex, includes methods for messing with the
        operating system and rearranging memory, and Edsgar Dijkstra
        doesn't like it [6].  (Dijkstra, as I'm sure you know, was the
        author of "GoTos 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.
     
        The Real Programmer might compromise his principles and work
        on something slightly more trivial than the destruction of
        life as we know it, providing there's enough money in it.
        There are several Real Programmers building 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.)  Everyone working at LucasFilm 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, mostly
        because nobody has found a use for computer graphics yet.  On
        the other hand, all computer graphics 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 he works -
        with computers.  He is constantly amazed that his employer
        actually pays him to do what he would be doing for fun anyway
        (although he is careful not to express this opinion out loud).
        Occasionally, the 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 his simulations 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, 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 one on the staff, it's best to put him (or her) in an
        environment where he can get his work done.
     
        The typical Real Programmer lives in front of a computer
        terminal.  Surrounding this terminal are:
     
        Listings of all programs the Real Programmer has ever worked
        on, piled in roughly chronological order on every flat surface
        in the office.
     
        Some half-dozen or so partly filled cups of cold coffee.
        Occasionally, there will be cigarette butts floating in the
        coffee.  In some cases, the cups will contain Orange Crush.
     
        Unless he is very good, there will be copies of the OS JCL
        manual and the Principles of Operation open to some
        particularly interesting pages.
     
        Taped to the wall is a line-printer Snoopy calendar for the
        year 1969.
     
        Strewn about the floor are several wrappers for peanut butter
        filled cheese bars - the type that are made pre-stale at the
        bakery so 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 a flowcharting template, left there by
        the previous occupant of the office.  (Real Programmers write
        programs, not documentation.  Leave that to the maintenance
        people.)
     
        The Real Programmer is capable of working 30, 40, even 50
        hours at a stretch, under intense pressure.  In fact, he
        prefers it that way.  Bad response time doesn't bother the
        Real Programmer - it gives him a 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 50-hour marathons.  This not
        only impresses the hell out of his manager, who was despairing
        of ever getting the project done on time, but creates a
        convenient excuse for not doing the documentation.  In
        general:
     
        No Real Programmer works 9 to 5 (unless it's the ones at
        night).
     
        Real Programmers don't wear neckties.
     
        Real Programmers don't wear high-heeled shoes.
     
        Real Programmers arrive at work in time for lunch [9].
     
        A Real Programmer might or might not know his wife's name. He
        does, however, know the entire {ASCII} (or EBCDIC) code table.
     
        Real Programmers don't know how to cook.  Grocery stores
        aren't open at three in the morning.  Real Programmers survive
        on Twinkies and coffee.
     
        THE FUTURE
     
        What of the future?  It is a matter 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" operating 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 coding 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 itself back into a Fortran 66 compiler at the drop
        of an option card - to compile DO loops like God meant them to
        be.
     
        Even Unix might not be as bad 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 driver, virtual memory.  If you ignore
        the fact that it's "structured", even 'C' programming can be
        appreciated by the Real Programmer: 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 to mention some of the more
        creative uses for #define.)
     
        No, the future isn't all that bad.  Why, in the past 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 M.I.T. 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!
     
        ACKNOWLEGEMENT
     
        I would like to thank Jan E., Dave S., Rich G., Rich E., for
        their help in characterizing the Real Programmer, Heather
        B. for the illustration, Kathy E. for putting up with it, and
        atd!avsdS:mark for the initial inspiration.
     
        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] Ilson, R., "Recent Research in Text Processing", IEEE
        Trans. Prof. Commun., Vol.  PC-23, No. 4, Dec. 4, 1980.
     
        [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, p.  110.
     
        [6] Dijkstra, E., "On the GREEN language submitted to the
        DoD", Sigplan notices, Vol. 3 No.  10, Oct 1978.
     
        [7] Rose, Frank, "Joy of Hacking", Science 82, Vol. 3 No.  9,
        Nov 82, pp.  58-66.
     
        [8] "The Hacker Papers", Psychology Today, August 1980.
     
        [9] sdcarl!lin, "Real Programmers", UUCP-net, Thu Oct 21
        16:55:16 1982.
     
        Ed Post, "Real Programmers Don't Use Pascal", DATAMATION, July
        1983, pp. 263-265 (Readers' Forum).
     
        (1997-08-29)