From: Charlton Wilbur on
Joe Morris <jcmorris(a)mitre.org> writes:

> Charles Richmond <richchas(a)comcast.net> writes:
>
> > I knew several engineering graduate students in the late 70's, and
> > understand that programming work for their theses *had* to be done
> > in FORTRAN. The thesis would be rejected if the software was done
> > in another language.
>
> Ouch. What was the justification for that policy? And at what university?

At a guess (having dealt with academentia), because if the software
were not written in FORTRAN, it would then be impossible to assemble a
thesis committee all of whom knew the implementation language
sufficiently well to comment intelligently on the programming work.

When I tried to assemble a thesis committee in another field, the two
most common responses I got translated to "sorry, already
overcommitted," and "don't know anything about that, not interested in
learning," with the latter outnumbering the former by about 3 to 1.

Charlton

From: jmfbahciv on
In article <ei7j7s$92a$2(a)newslocal.mitre.org>,
Joe Morris <jcmorris(a)mitre.org> wrote:
>Charles Richmond <richchas(a)comcast.net> writes:
>
>>I knew several engineering graduate students in the late 70's,
>>and understand that programming work for their theses *had* to
>>be done in FORTRAN. The thesis would be rejected if the software
>>was done in another language.
>
>Ouch. What was the justification for that policy? And at what university?

Remember that Charles is an auld fart. My best guesses are:
1. That's the only lanugage the advisors knew or
2. Interdeparmental politics (a.k.a budgeting games) required
that FORTRAN to be used for past and future expenditures.

>
>Assuming that FORTRAN was not the *subject* of the thesis, I can't
>see any reason why "the most appropriate tool available" would not
>have been the test. Or *was* that the issue -- discouraging the
>use of cute alternatives which at that particular university were
>inferior *for the specific thesis topics*? (e.g., using COBOL
>to do scientific calculations)

Think back to days when this stuff cost serious money like $10K
and $100K a year.

/BAH

From: jmfbahciv on
In article <k5cdk2t78n3vv3dpav0v5nlqus9j4rrgpg(a)4ax.com>,
Brian Inglis <Brian.Inglis(a)SystematicSW.Invalid> wrote:
>On Mon, 30 Oct 2006 15:34:39 -0600 in alt.folklore.computers, Charles
>Richmond <richchas(a)comcast.net> wrote:
>
>>Brian Inglis wrote:
>>>
>>> [snip...] [snip...] [snip...]
>>>
>>> ...and ISTR their standard drivers went haywire if you didn't clip or
>>> scale the vectors to the paper width: drew right down the edge of the
>>> paper, then started drawing from wherever they ended up, a few feet
>>> away from where they should be plotting.
>>>
>>> I'm a big fan of previewing, to avoid including insignificant outlying
>>> data, and autoscaling, to be able to show all of the data, regardless
>>> of output media size.
>>> Nice to be able to view project plans a few feet high and umpty feet
>>> long on the wall.
>>>
>>"Back in the day", at a PPoE, we taped strips of "butcher paper"
>>to the wall and used Magic Markers to draw our project plans and
>>flows. These were umpty-ump feet wide and tall.
>
>But so lo-tech! ;^>

ARe you kidding? That's hi-tech. I never used magic markers
(they were too expensive).

I used blackboards and chalk and erasers. hmmm...I could put
a blackboard up if I'm willing to give up the wall space in
leiu of bookshelves. That would be wonderful.

/BAH


/BAH
From: jmfbahciv on
In article <TXu1h.398$zB4.254(a)twister.nyroc.rr.com>,
Peter Flass <Peter_Flass(a)Yahoo.com> wrote:
>Greg Lindahl wrote:
>> In article <l711h.488$xw1.226(a)twister.nyroc.rr.com>,
>> Peter Flass <Peter_Flass(a)Yahoo.com> wrote:
>>
>>
>>>Now fewer and fewer people develop software that is used by more and
>>>more people. The market for compilers is becoming more limited, but the
>>>cost of developing a compiler is not decreasing nearly as rapidly, so
>>>the prices of commercial compilers have jumped.
>>
>>
>> I don't think there's proof of any of this.
>
>Well, you're right. I should have said "IMHO." I think we can take it
>as fact that the percentage of computer users who ptogram has been
>declining sharply, however.

I don't know. My mother wants to learn.
/BAH
From: glen herrmannsfeldt on
Steve O'Hara-Smith wrote:

(snip)

> Cue many people to tell us where relocation is still in active
> use and why it's better than PIC or memory mapping :)

PIC tends to be slower on most processors, such that it isn't
the default when it isn't needed. Memory mapping is usually on
to coarse of boundaries, maybe 4K. (At least for link time relocation.)

-- glen