* [TUHS] Re: SNOBOL and RATSNO
@ 2022-08-09 22:18 Douglas McIlroy
2022-08-09 22:25 ` Larry McVoy
2022-08-10 15:05 ` arnold
0 siblings, 2 replies; 40+ messages in thread
From: Douglas McIlroy @ 2022-08-09 22:18 UTC (permalink / raw)
To: TUHS main list
> I've always believed that pic was so well designed
> because it took a day to get the print out (back then),
I'm afraid this belief is urban legend. Credit for pic is due 100% to
Kernighan, not to the contemporary pace of computing practice.
Even in the 1950s, we had one-hour turnaround at Bell Labs. And the
leap from batch processing had happened well before pic. Turnaround on
modest Unix source files and tests has changed little in the past
fifty years.
Doug
^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 40+ messages in thread
* [TUHS] Re: SNOBOL and RATSNO 2022-08-09 22:18 [TUHS] Re: SNOBOL and RATSNO Douglas McIlroy @ 2022-08-09 22:25 ` Larry McVoy 2022-08-10 15:05 ` arnold 1 sibling, 0 replies; 40+ messages in thread From: Larry McVoy @ 2022-08-09 22:25 UTC (permalink / raw) To: Douglas McIlroy; +Cc: TUHS main list On Tue, Aug 09, 2022 at 06:18:52PM -0400, Douglas McIlroy wrote: > > I've always believed that pic was so well designed > > because it took a day to get the print out (back then), > > I'm afraid this belief is urban legend. Credit for pic is due 100% to > Kernighan, not to the contemporary pace of computing practice. Well kudos to Brian then. Pic is one the best designed tools I've ever seen. ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 40+ messages in thread
* [TUHS] Re: SNOBOL and RATSNO 2022-08-09 22:18 [TUHS] Re: SNOBOL and RATSNO Douglas McIlroy 2022-08-09 22:25 ` Larry McVoy @ 2022-08-10 15:05 ` arnold 2022-08-10 17:14 ` Larry McVoy 1 sibling, 1 reply; 40+ messages in thread From: arnold @ 2022-08-10 15:05 UTC (permalink / raw) To: tuhs, douglas.mcilroy Hi All. Douglas McIlroy <douglas.mcilroy@dartmouth.edu> wrote: > > I've always believed that pic was so well designed > > because it took a day to get the print out (back then), > > I'm afraid this belief is urban legend. Credit for pic is due 100% to > Kernighan, not to the contemporary pace of computing practice. I occassionally forward TUHS items (that I think are) of interest to Brian. I have in the past forwarded one of Larry's "I like pic because I can read the code and visualize the picture" emails to him. He responded that he didn't work that way. :-) Here, by permission, is his response to Larry's latest note of that kind, which I think is also of more or less general interest: > Date: Tue, 9 Aug 2022 19:03:00 -0400 (EDT) > From: Brian Kernighan <bwk@cs.princeton.edu> > To: arnold@skeeve.com > Subject: Re: larry mcvoy on pic, again > > I don't know that I would read too much into the development of > Pic, though my memory is so dim that it would all be made up > anyway. > > One observation: with Yacc and Lex available, languages were a lot > easier to implement; I had already done a troff preprocessor so > that aspect was well in hand. And I was actually the owner of > troff at the same time, so I could mix and match (e.g., the > primitives for drawing lines). I think that "seeing the output" > wasn't too hard, either because I could use the typesetter, or the > Tectronix 4014 (?) for which there was a troff output emulator > that I think I wrote. > > The main issues as I recall were figuring out coordinate systems, > since Pic had Y going positive as with conventional plotting, > while troff had it going negative (down the page is higher Y > values). > > But it's all kind of fuzzy at this point. ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 40+ messages in thread
* [TUHS] Re: SNOBOL and RATSNO 2022-08-10 15:05 ` arnold @ 2022-08-10 17:14 ` Larry McVoy 2022-08-10 17:37 ` arnold 0 siblings, 1 reply; 40+ messages in thread From: Larry McVoy @ 2022-08-10 17:14 UTC (permalink / raw) To: arnold; +Cc: tuhs, douglas.mcilroy Well, I stand behind my comments. Take a look at what xfig(1) produces and contrast that with even an average pic(1) source file. You can't see what xfig is saying but you can easily see what pic is saying. Maybe people just haven't written much pic, but what you can do with it, and see without rendering it, is pretty amazing. I got James Clark to add the 'i'th concept so you could do for loops to lay out elements and I wrote a pic script where you could set variables like cpus, networks, disks and it would draw different configurations of a SPARCcluster. Pic is pretty neat, I find it easier to read than any of the other troff preprocessors. On Wed, Aug 10, 2022 at 09:05:20AM -0600, arnold@skeeve.com wrote: > Hi All. > > Douglas McIlroy <douglas.mcilroy@dartmouth.edu> wrote: > > > > I've always believed that pic was so well designed > > > because it took a day to get the print out (back then), > > > > I'm afraid this belief is urban legend. Credit for pic is due 100% to > > Kernighan, not to the contemporary pace of computing practice. > > I occassionally forward TUHS items (that I think are) of interest > to Brian. I have in the past forwarded one of Larry's "I like pic > because I can read the code and visualize the picture" emails to > him. He responded that he didn't work that way. :-) > > Here, by permission, is his response to Larry's latest note of > that kind, which I think is also of more or less general interest: > > > Date: Tue, 9 Aug 2022 19:03:00 -0400 (EDT) > > From: Brian Kernighan <bwk@cs.princeton.edu> > > To: arnold@skeeve.com > > Subject: Re: larry mcvoy on pic, again > > > > I don't know that I would read too much into the development of > > Pic, though my memory is so dim that it would all be made up > > anyway. > > > > One observation: with Yacc and Lex available, languages were a lot > > easier to implement; I had already done a troff preprocessor so > > that aspect was well in hand. And I was actually the owner of > > troff at the same time, so I could mix and match (e.g., the > > primitives for drawing lines). I think that "seeing the output" > > wasn't too hard, either because I could use the typesetter, or the > > Tectronix 4014 (?) for which there was a troff output emulator > > that I think I wrote. > > > > The main issues as I recall were figuring out coordinate systems, > > since Pic had Y going positive as with conventional plotting, > > while troff had it going negative (down the page is higher Y > > values). > > > > But it's all kind of fuzzy at this point. -- --- Larry McVoy Retired to fishing http://www.mcvoy.com/lm/boat ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 40+ messages in thread
* [TUHS] Re: SNOBOL and RATSNO 2022-08-10 17:14 ` Larry McVoy @ 2022-08-10 17:37 ` arnold 2022-08-10 17:44 ` [TUHS] Re: SNOBOL and RATSNO [ really pic ] Jon Steinhart 2022-08-10 18:24 ` [TUHS] Re: SNOBOL and RATSNO joe mcguckin 0 siblings, 2 replies; 40+ messages in thread From: arnold @ 2022-08-10 17:37 UTC (permalink / raw) To: lm, arnold; +Cc: tuhs, douglas.mcilroy Oh, I'm not arguing with any of this. I'm merely noting that you are unusual in your ability to easily visualize pic results from looking at the code. Arnold Larry McVoy <lm@mcvoy.com> wrote: > Well, I stand behind my comments. Take a look at what xfig(1) > produces and contrast that with even an average pic(1) source > file. You can't see what xfig is saying but you can easily see > what pic is saying. > > Maybe people just haven't written much pic, but what you can do > with it, and see without rendering it, is pretty amazing. > > I got James Clark to add the 'i'th concept so you could do for > loops to lay out elements and I wrote a pic script where you > could set variables like cpus, networks, disks and it would > draw different configurations of a SPARCcluster. > > Pic is pretty neat, I find it easier to read than any of the > other troff preprocessors. > > On Wed, Aug 10, 2022 at 09:05:20AM -0600, arnold@skeeve.com wrote: > > Hi All. > > > > Douglas McIlroy <douglas.mcilroy@dartmouth.edu> wrote: > > > > > > I've always believed that pic was so well designed > > > > because it took a day to get the print out (back then), > > > > > > I'm afraid this belief is urban legend. Credit for pic is due 100% to > > > Kernighan, not to the contemporary pace of computing practice. > > > > I occassionally forward TUHS items (that I think are) of interest > > to Brian. I have in the past forwarded one of Larry's "I like pic > > because I can read the code and visualize the picture" emails to > > him. He responded that he didn't work that way. :-) > > > > Here, by permission, is his response to Larry's latest note of > > that kind, which I think is also of more or less general interest: > > > > > Date: Tue, 9 Aug 2022 19:03:00 -0400 (EDT) > > > From: Brian Kernighan <bwk@cs.princeton.edu> > > > To: arnold@skeeve.com > > > Subject: Re: larry mcvoy on pic, again > > > > > > I don't know that I would read too much into the development of > > > Pic, though my memory is so dim that it would all be made up > > > anyway. > > > > > > One observation: with Yacc and Lex available, languages were a lot > > > easier to implement; I had already done a troff preprocessor so > > > that aspect was well in hand. And I was actually the owner of > > > troff at the same time, so I could mix and match (e.g., the > > > primitives for drawing lines). I think that "seeing the output" > > > wasn't too hard, either because I could use the typesetter, or the > > > Tectronix 4014 (?) for which there was a troff output emulator > > > that I think I wrote. > > > > > > The main issues as I recall were figuring out coordinate systems, > > > since Pic had Y going positive as with conventional plotting, > > > while troff had it going negative (down the page is higher Y > > > values). > > > > > > But it's all kind of fuzzy at this point. > > -- > --- > Larry McVoy Retired to fishing http://www.mcvoy.com/lm/boat ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 40+ messages in thread
* [TUHS] Re: SNOBOL and RATSNO [ really pic ] 2022-08-10 17:37 ` arnold @ 2022-08-10 17:44 ` Jon Steinhart 2022-08-10 18:02 ` Larry McVoy 2022-08-10 18:24 ` [TUHS] Re: SNOBOL and RATSNO joe mcguckin 1 sibling, 1 reply; 40+ messages in thread From: Jon Steinhart @ 2022-08-10 17:44 UTC (permalink / raw) To: tuhs arnold@skeeve.com writes: > Oh, I'm not arguing with any of this. I'm merely noting that > you are unusual in your ability to easily visualize pic results > from looking at the code. Not at all. I'm a big fan of pic too. And I've written preprocessors for it, such as one that generated GANTT charts. To me, the best feature of pic is invisible elements. As Larry pointed out, xfig uses absolute coordinates and is a mess. When I use pic, I usually start out with a big invisible box and hang things off of it. That makes it trivial to do things like shrinking or growing just by changing the invisible box size. In my opinion, the biggest failing of pic comes from the one-way connection to troff. It's really hard to do things like "box that fits this text". Jon ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 40+ messages in thread
* [TUHS] Re: SNOBOL and RATSNO [ really pic ] 2022-08-10 17:44 ` [TUHS] Re: SNOBOL and RATSNO [ really pic ] Jon Steinhart @ 2022-08-10 18:02 ` Larry McVoy 2022-08-10 18:04 ` Jon Steinhart 2022-08-11 7:37 ` [TUHS] Re: pic's One-way Information Flow. (Was: SNOBOL and RATSNO) Ralph Corderoy 0 siblings, 2 replies; 40+ messages in thread From: Larry McVoy @ 2022-08-10 18:02 UTC (permalink / raw) To: Jon Steinhart; +Cc: tuhs On Wed, Aug 10, 2022 at 10:44:32AM -0700, Jon Steinhart wrote: > arnold@skeeve.com writes: > > Oh, I'm not arguing with any of this. I'm merely noting that > > you are unusual in your ability to easily visualize pic results > > from looking at the code. > > Not at all. I'm a big fan of pic too. And I've written preprocessors > for it, such as one that generated GANTT charts. > > To me, the best feature of pic is invisible elements. As Larry pointed > out, xfig uses absolute coordinates and is a mess. When I use pic, I > usually start out with a big invisible box and hang things off of it. > That makes it trivial to do things like shrinking or growing just by > changing the invisible box size. > > In my opinion, the biggest failing of pic comes from the one-way connection > to troff. It's really hard to do things like "box that fits this text". Jon gets it, I'm not the only one. I do the same thing with a big invisble box, it gives you a mental place to place things. Also agree with the "box that fits this text" problem, pic really could use a sizeof("this text in the current font/point size/line spacing") that returns x,y. But I don't see how to do that because pic doesn't have that info, pic would need to be able to ask troff what those are. Oh, and I've written my own crappy version of grap(1) that spits out pic, it was pretty easy. So at least Jon sees pic like I do and I suspect there are plenty more who do as well. Spend some time writing some pic scripts and I suspect anyone can get good at seeing what it is doing. It's a super pleasant little language. ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 40+ messages in thread
* [TUHS] Re: SNOBOL and RATSNO [ really pic ] 2022-08-10 18:02 ` Larry McVoy @ 2022-08-10 18:04 ` Jon Steinhart 2022-08-10 18:13 ` [TUHS] Re: pic Michael Kjörling 2022-08-10 18:19 ` Dennis Boone 2022-08-11 7:37 ` [TUHS] Re: pic's One-way Information Flow. (Was: SNOBOL and RATSNO) Ralph Corderoy 1 sibling, 2 replies; 40+ messages in thread From: Jon Steinhart @ 2022-08-10 18:04 UTC (permalink / raw) To: tuhs Larry McVoy writes: > Jon gets it, I'm not the only one. I do the same thing with a big > invisble box, it gives you a mental place to place things. > > Also agree with the "box that fits this text" problem, pic really could > use a sizeof("this text in the current font/point size/line spacing") > that returns x,y. But I don't see how to do that because pic doesn't > have that info, pic would need to be able to ask troff what those are. > > Oh, and I've written my own crappy version of grap(1) that spits out > pic, it was pretty easy. > > So at least Jon sees pic like I do and I suspect there are plenty more > who do as well. Spend some time writing some pic scripts and I suspect > anyone can get good at seeing what it is doing. It's a super pleasant > little language. Stop being so agreeable, go fishing or something :-) Might have mentioned this before, but I have a toolchain for converting pic to SVG as that's the only vector format that can be included in word documents. ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 40+ messages in thread
* [TUHS] Re: pic 2022-08-10 18:04 ` Jon Steinhart @ 2022-08-10 18:13 ` Michael Kjörling 2022-08-10 18:19 ` Dennis Boone 1 sibling, 0 replies; 40+ messages in thread From: Michael Kjörling @ 2022-08-10 18:13 UTC (permalink / raw) To: tuhs On 10 Aug 2022 11:04 -0700, from jon@fourwinds.com (Jon Steinhart): > Might have mentioned this before, but I have a toolchain for converting > pic to SVG as that's the only vector format that can be included in word > documents. Would that happen to be available somewhere, for posterity? -- Michael Kjörling • https://michael.kjorling.se • michael@kjorling.se “Remember when, on the Internet, nobody cared that you were a dog?” ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 40+ messages in thread
* [TUHS] Re: pic 2022-08-10 18:04 ` Jon Steinhart 2022-08-10 18:13 ` [TUHS] Re: pic Michael Kjörling @ 2022-08-10 18:19 ` Dennis Boone 2022-08-10 18:24 ` Jon Steinhart 1 sibling, 1 reply; 40+ messages in thread From: Dennis Boone @ 2022-08-10 18:19 UTC (permalink / raw) To: tuhs > Would that happen to be available somewhere, for posterity? pic2plot, from the plotutils package, will do pic -> various formats, including svg. De ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 40+ messages in thread
* [TUHS] Re: pic 2022-08-10 18:19 ` Dennis Boone @ 2022-08-10 18:24 ` Jon Steinhart 2022-08-11 0:10 ` Dan Cross 0 siblings, 1 reply; 40+ messages in thread From: Jon Steinhart @ 2022-08-10 18:24 UTC (permalink / raw) Dennis Boone writes: > > Would that happen to be available somewhere, for posterity? > > pic2plot, from the plotutils package, will do pic -> various formats, > including svg. Huh. Wasn't aware of that one, but seems to rely on a groff svg driver which I've never seen. What I've done is pic -> groff -> ps2pdf -> pdf2svg -> inkscape. Inkscape is used just to crop bounding box to the image size so that there's not a huge amount of whitespace. ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 40+ messages in thread
* [TUHS] Re: pic 2022-08-10 18:24 ` Jon Steinhart @ 2022-08-11 0:10 ` Dan Cross 2022-08-11 12:13 ` arnold 0 siblings, 1 reply; 40+ messages in thread From: Dan Cross @ 2022-08-11 0:10 UTC (permalink / raw) To: The Unix Heritage Society On Wed, Aug 10, 2022 at 2:24 PM Jon Steinhart <jon@fourwinds.com> wrote: > Dennis Boone writes: > > > Would that happen to be available somewhere, for posterity? > > > > pic2plot, from the plotutils package, will do pic -> various formats, > > including svg. > > Huh. Wasn't aware of that one, but seems to rely on a groff svg driver > which I've never seen. > > What I've done is pic -> groff -> ps2pdf -> pdf2svg -> inkscape. > Inkscape is used just to crop bounding box to the image size so > that there's not a huge amount of whitespace. Google has built an in-house documentation system based on extended markdown, and it was very nice: check your text markdown files into a specially-named subdirectory in the monorepo and point a web browser at an internal service for a nicely rendered web version, available immediately. There was a syntax for including graphviz markup, and something similar for (I think) state diagrams, but support for more general drawing was missing, and I thought pic(1) would be just dandy, if it could be persuaded to generate SVG. I wrote to Brian, who works part-time at Google, and pitched the idea to him, and he extended pic to generate SVG, though it wasn't clear to what sources he was modifying, exactly. Then the pandemic hit, and I ended up leaving Google, so I don't think it went beyond that, but IIRC he said that coercing pic to generate SVG wasn't particularly difficult. - Dan C. ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 40+ messages in thread
* [TUHS] Re: pic 2022-08-11 0:10 ` Dan Cross @ 2022-08-11 12:13 ` arnold 2022-08-11 14:34 ` Dan Cross 0 siblings, 1 reply; 40+ messages in thread From: arnold @ 2022-08-11 12:13 UTC (permalink / raw) To: tuhs, crossd Dan Cross <crossd@gmail.com> wrote: > I wrote to Brian, who works part-time at Google, and > pitched the idea to him, and he extended pic to > generate SVG, though it wasn't clear to what sources > he was modifying, exactly. Then the pandemic hit, and > I ended up leaving Google, so I don't think it went > beyond that, but IIRC he said that coercing pic to > generate SVG wasn't particularly difficult. I'm sure he'd have been messing with his own sources. These days it'd be best to tr to get new features into GNU pic (IMHO, of course). Arnold ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 40+ messages in thread
* [TUHS] Re: pic 2022-08-11 12:13 ` arnold @ 2022-08-11 14:34 ` Dan Cross 2022-08-12 1:52 ` G. Branden Robinson 0 siblings, 1 reply; 40+ messages in thread From: Dan Cross @ 2022-08-11 14:34 UTC (permalink / raw) To: arnold; +Cc: tuhs On Thu, Aug 11, 2022 at 8:13 AM <arnold@skeeve.com> wrote: > Dan Cross <crossd@gmail.com> wrote: > > I wrote to Brian, who works part-time at Google, and > > pitched the idea to him, and he extended pic to > > generate SVG, though it wasn't clear to what sources > > he was modifying, exactly. Then the pandemic hit, and > > I ended up leaving Google, so I don't think it went > > beyond that, but IIRC he said that coercing pic to > > generate SVG wasn't particularly difficult. > > I'm sure he'd have been messing with his own sources. These > days it'd be best to tr to get new features into GNU pic > (IMHO, of course). Oh surely. I just don't know what sources those would be, exactly; presumably some derivative he's been shepherded all these years? I wonder what it is.... - Dan C. ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 40+ messages in thread
* [TUHS] Re: pic 2022-08-11 14:34 ` Dan Cross @ 2022-08-12 1:52 ` G. Branden Robinson 2022-08-12 6:46 ` arnold 0 siblings, 1 reply; 40+ messages in thread From: G. Branden Robinson @ 2022-08-12 1:52 UTC (permalink / raw) To: tuhs, groff [-- Attachment #1: Type: text/plain, Size: 1746 bytes --] [looping in groff list] At 2022-08-11T10:34:50-0400, Dan Cross wrote: > On Thu, Aug 11, 2022 at 8:13 AM <arnold@skeeve.com> wrote: > > Dan Cross <crossd@gmail.com> wrote: > > > I wrote to Brian, who works part-time at Google, and pitched the > > > idea to him, and he extended pic to generate SVG, though it wasn't > > > clear to what sources he was modifying, exactly. Then the pandemic > > > hit, and I ended up leaving Google, so I don't think it went > > > beyond that, but IIRC he said that coercing pic to generate SVG > > > wasn't particularly difficult. > > > > I'm sure he'd have been messing with his own sources. These days > > it'd be best to tr to get new features into GNU pic (IMHO, of > > course). > > Oh surely. I just don't know what sources those would be, exactly; > presumably some derivative he's been shepherded all these years? I > wonder what it is.... Per Kernighan's _Unix: A History and a Memoir_ (2020), it seems likely that it was simply groff. "Camera-ready copy for this book was produced by the author in Times Roman and Helvetica, using groff, ghostscript, and other open source Unix tools." (copyright page) Further, figure 5.4 in that work was "created with Pic" (p. 95). GNU pic is already parameterized in the output format it produces, supporting four variants: "tpic" (`-c` option), "tex" (`-t`), "fig" (`-f`), and "troff". "fig" support has been #defined out for years and may never have been completed. SVG output, perhaps behind an `-s` flag, would be extremely helpful toward simplifying groff's HTML output story. (The other barrier is tbl's production of HTML tables, Savannah #60052.[1]) Regards, Branden [1] https://savannah.gnu.org/bugs/?60052 [-- Attachment #2: signature.asc --] [-- Type: application/pgp-signature, Size: 833 bytes --] ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 40+ messages in thread
* [TUHS] Re: pic 2022-08-12 1:52 ` G. Branden Robinson @ 2022-08-12 6:46 ` arnold 2022-08-12 20:49 ` G. Branden Robinson 0 siblings, 1 reply; 40+ messages in thread From: arnold @ 2022-08-12 6:46 UTC (permalink / raw) To: tuhs, groff, g.branden.robinson "G. Branden Robinson" <g.branden.robinson@gmail.com> wrote: > > Oh surely. I just don't know what sources those would be, exactly; > > presumably some derivative he's been shepherded all these years? I > > wonder what it is.... > > Per Kernighan's _Unix: A History and a Memoir_ (2020), it seems likely > that it was simply groff. Knowing BWK, I personally doubt that he'd have messed with GNU pic when he has his own copy of the original program that he himself wrote. I'm also quite sure that he prefers C to C++. > "Camera-ready copy for this book was produced by the author in Times > Roman and Helvetica, using groff, ghostscript, and other open source > Unix tools." (copyright page) Sure, because he works on Linux and MacOS and the GNU tools are easily installable and "just work". Of course, Dan could always just ask Brian what he did. :-) Arnold ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 40+ messages in thread
* [TUHS] Re: pic 2022-08-12 6:46 ` arnold @ 2022-08-12 20:49 ` G. Branden Robinson 0 siblings, 0 replies; 40+ messages in thread From: G. Branden Robinson @ 2022-08-12 20:49 UTC (permalink / raw) To: arnold; +Cc: tuhs, groff [-- Attachment #1: Type: text/plain, Size: 874 bytes --] At 2022-08-12T00:46:57-0600, arnold@skeeve.com wrote: > "G. Branden Robinson" <g.branden.robinson@gmail.com> wrote: > > > Oh surely. I just don't know what sources those would be, exactly; > > > presumably some derivative he's been shepherded all these years? I > > > wonder what it is.... > > > > Per Kernighan's _Unix: A History and a Memoir_ (2020), it seems > > likely that it was simply groff. > > Knowing BWK, I personally doubt that he'd have messed with GNU pic > when he has his own copy of the original program that he himself wrote. Wishful thinking on my part, maybe. > I'm also quite sure that he prefers C to C++. No doubt--but groff is pretty accessible to C programmers, being almost entirely of an ancient vintage of C++. We don't have rvalue references inside lambda expressions inside templates, for instance. Regards, Branden [-- Attachment #2: signature.asc --] [-- Type: application/pgp-signature, Size: 833 bytes --] ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 40+ messages in thread
* [TUHS] Re: pic's One-way Information Flow. (Was: SNOBOL and RATSNO) 2022-08-10 18:02 ` Larry McVoy 2022-08-10 18:04 ` Jon Steinhart @ 2022-08-11 7:37 ` Ralph Corderoy 1 sibling, 0 replies; 40+ messages in thread From: Ralph Corderoy @ 2022-08-11 7:37 UTC (permalink / raw) To: tuhs Hi Larry, > Also agree with the "box that fits this text" problem, pic really > could use a sizeof("this text in the current font/point size/line > spacing") that returns x,y. But I don't see how to do that because > pic doesn't have that info, pic would need to be able to ask troff > what those are. Rather than work out the coordinates of everything, could pic punt some of that downstream to troff by producing expressions which rest on variables set by troff to, say, the width of a diversion. The order of evaluation presented to troff would obviously have to be topological on the dependencies which bars cycles. It would add elasticity to a drawing. The other approach would be a multi-pass effort where pic initially assumes unknown dimensions, like some text's width, but also outputs troff which will store the actual width for input to pic on future runs. -- Cheers, Ralph. ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 40+ messages in thread
* [TUHS] Re: SNOBOL and RATSNO 2022-08-10 17:37 ` arnold 2022-08-10 17:44 ` [TUHS] Re: SNOBOL and RATSNO [ really pic ] Jon Steinhart @ 2022-08-10 18:24 ` joe mcguckin 1 sibling, 0 replies; 40+ messages in thread From: joe mcguckin @ 2022-08-10 18:24 UTC (permalink / raw) To: Aharon Robbins; +Cc: tuhs, douglas.mcilroy [-- Attachment #1: Type: text/plain, Size: 3537 bytes --] I used to work for a computer manufacturer that was nearly dead - lots of cubicles piled full of junk. The reference manuals had these very nice diagrams of the computer boards detailing the connectors on the board edges. Imagine my surprise when I discovered all the artwork was PIC generated… Joe Joe McGuckin ViaNet Communications joe@via.net 650-207-0372 cell 650-213-1302 office 650-969-2124 fax > On Aug 10, 2022, at 10:37 AM, arnold@skeeve.com wrote: > > Oh, I'm not arguing with any of this. I'm merely noting that > you are unusual in your ability to easily visualize pic results > from looking at the code. > > Arnold > > Larry McVoy <lm@mcvoy.com> wrote: > >> Well, I stand behind my comments. Take a look at what xfig(1) >> produces and contrast that with even an average pic(1) source >> file. You can't see what xfig is saying but you can easily see >> what pic is saying. >> >> Maybe people just haven't written much pic, but what you can do >> with it, and see without rendering it, is pretty amazing. >> >> I got James Clark to add the 'i'th concept so you could do for >> loops to lay out elements and I wrote a pic script where you >> could set variables like cpus, networks, disks and it would >> draw different configurations of a SPARCcluster. >> >> Pic is pretty neat, I find it easier to read than any of the >> other troff preprocessors. >> >> On Wed, Aug 10, 2022 at 09:05:20AM -0600, arnold@skeeve.com wrote: >>> Hi All. >>> >>> Douglas McIlroy <douglas.mcilroy@dartmouth.edu> wrote: >>> >>>>> I've always believed that pic was so well designed >>>>> because it took a day to get the print out (back then), >>>> >>>> I'm afraid this belief is urban legend. Credit for pic is due 100% to >>>> Kernighan, not to the contemporary pace of computing practice. >>> >>> I occassionally forward TUHS items (that I think are) of interest >>> to Brian. I have in the past forwarded one of Larry's "I like pic >>> because I can read the code and visualize the picture" emails to >>> him. He responded that he didn't work that way. :-) >>> >>> Here, by permission, is his response to Larry's latest note of >>> that kind, which I think is also of more or less general interest: >>> >>>> Date: Tue, 9 Aug 2022 19:03:00 -0400 (EDT) >>>> From: Brian Kernighan <bwk@cs.princeton.edu> >>>> To: arnold@skeeve.com >>>> Subject: Re: larry mcvoy on pic, again >>>> >>>> I don't know that I would read too much into the development of >>>> Pic, though my memory is so dim that it would all be made up >>>> anyway. >>>> >>>> One observation: with Yacc and Lex available, languages were a lot >>>> easier to implement; I had already done a troff preprocessor so >>>> that aspect was well in hand. And I was actually the owner of >>>> troff at the same time, so I could mix and match (e.g., the >>>> primitives for drawing lines). I think that "seeing the output" >>>> wasn't too hard, either because I could use the typesetter, or the >>>> Tectronix 4014 (?) for which there was a troff output emulator >>>> that I think I wrote. >>>> >>>> The main issues as I recall were figuring out coordinate systems, >>>> since Pic had Y going positive as with conventional plotting, >>>> while troff had it going negative (down the page is higher Y >>>> values). >>>> >>>> But it's all kind of fuzzy at this point. >> >> -- >> --- >> Larry McVoy Retired to fishing http://www.mcvoy.com/lm/boat [-- Attachment #2: Type: text/html, Size: 6575 bytes --] ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 40+ messages in thread
* [TUHS] Re: SNOBOL and RATSNO @ 2022-08-09 17:42 Noel Chiappa 2022-08-09 18:49 ` Larry McVoy 2022-08-10 21:13 ` Bill Cheswick 0 siblings, 2 replies; 40+ messages in thread From: Noel Chiappa @ 2022-08-09 17:42 UTC (permalink / raw) To: tuhs; +Cc: jnc > From: Rob Pike > I still marvel at the productivity and precision of his generatio We noticed the same thing happening in the IETF, as the number of people working on networking went up. The explanation is really quite simple, once you think about it a bit. If you have a very small group, it is quite possible to have a very high level. (Not if it's selected randomly, of course; there has to be some sorting function.) However, as the group gets much larger, it is _necessarily_ much more 'average' in the skill/etc level of its members. This rule applies to any group - which includes the members of TUHS, of course. Noel ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 40+ messages in thread
* [TUHS] Re: SNOBOL and RATSNO 2022-08-09 17:42 Noel Chiappa @ 2022-08-09 18:49 ` Larry McVoy 2022-08-09 18:54 ` Tom Teixeira 2022-08-10 21:13 ` Bill Cheswick 1 sibling, 1 reply; 40+ messages in thread From: Larry McVoy @ 2022-08-09 18:49 UTC (permalink / raw) To: Noel Chiappa; +Cc: tuhs On Tue, Aug 09, 2022 at 01:42:32PM -0400, Noel Chiappa wrote: > > From: Rob Pike > > > I still marvel at the productivity and precision of his generatio > > We noticed the same thing happening in the IETF, as the number of people > working on networking went up. The explanation is really quite simple, once > you think about it a bit. > > If you have a very small group, it is quite possible to have a very high > level. (Not if it's selected randomly, of course; there has to be some > sorting function.) However, as the group gets much larger, it is > _necessarily_ much more 'average' in the skill/etc level of its members. I used to complain about this at Sun and was dryly told "We get it, Larry, you are yeast. You need flour to make bread." And as time went on, I found that the smart people tended to find each other. So it was fine. It is more fun when it is a highly curated group of smart people. Made me work hard to keep up. ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 40+ messages in thread
* [TUHS] Re: SNOBOL and RATSNO 2022-08-09 18:49 ` Larry McVoy @ 2022-08-09 18:54 ` Tom Teixeira 2022-08-09 19:00 ` Larry McVoy 0 siblings, 1 reply; 40+ messages in thread From: Tom Teixeira @ 2022-08-09 18:54 UTC (permalink / raw) To: The Eunuchs Hysterical Society On 8/9/22 2:49 PM, Larry McVoy wrote: > On Tue, Aug 09, 2022 at 01:42:32PM -0400, Noel Chiappa wrote: >> > From: Rob Pike >> >> > I still marvel at the productivity and precision of his generatio >> >> We noticed the same thing happening in the IETF, as the number of people >> working on networking went up. The explanation is really quite simple, once >> you think about it a bit. >> >> If you have a very small group, it is quite possible to have a very high >> level. (Not if it's selected randomly, of course; there has to be some >> sorting function.) However, as the group gets much larger, it is >> _necessarily_ much more 'average' in the skill/etc level of its members. > I used to complain about this at Sun and was dryly told "We get it, > Larry, you are yeast. You need flour to make bread." > > And as time went on, I found that the smart people tended to find each > other. So it was fine. > > It is more fun when it is a highly curated group of smart people. Made > me work hard to keep up. Put another way, "If you're always the smartest person in the room, you're spending your time in the wrong rooms." ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 40+ messages in thread
* [TUHS] Re: SNOBOL and RATSNO 2022-08-09 18:54 ` Tom Teixeira @ 2022-08-09 19:00 ` Larry McVoy 2022-08-09 19:21 ` Marshall Conover 0 siblings, 1 reply; 40+ messages in thread From: Larry McVoy @ 2022-08-09 19:00 UTC (permalink / raw) To: Tom Teixeira; +Cc: The Eunuchs Hysterical Society On Tue, Aug 09, 2022 at 02:54:08PM -0400, Tom Teixeira wrote: > On 8/9/22 2:49 PM, Larry McVoy wrote: > >On Tue, Aug 09, 2022 at 01:42:32PM -0400, Noel Chiappa wrote: > >> > From: Rob Pike > >> > >> > I still marvel at the productivity and precision of his generatio > >> > >>We noticed the same thing happening in the IETF, as the number of people > >>working on networking went up. The explanation is really quite simple, once > >>you think about it a bit. > >> > >>If you have a very small group, it is quite possible to have a very high > >>level. (Not if it's selected randomly, of course; there has to be some > >>sorting function.) However, as the group gets much larger, it is > >>_necessarily_ much more 'average' in the skill/etc level of its members. > >I used to complain about this at Sun and was dryly told "We get it, > >Larry, you are yeast. You need flour to make bread." > > > >And as time went on, I found that the smart people tended to find each > >other. So it was fine. > > > >It is more fun when it is a highly curated group of smart people. Made > >me work hard to keep up. > > Put another way, "If you're always the smartest person in the room, you're > spending your time in the wrong rooms." I was usually the dumbest one in the room, I found the right rooms :-) I personally like being "dumb", the other people just make you want to work harder to reach their level. Back when I used to play pool pretty seriously, I always tried to play people better than me. You get lazy if you are the best. -- --- Larry McVoy Retired to fishing http://www.mcvoy.com/lm/boat ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 40+ messages in thread
* [TUHS] Re: SNOBOL and RATSNO 2022-08-09 19:00 ` Larry McVoy @ 2022-08-09 19:21 ` Marshall Conover 2022-08-09 20:19 ` Warner Losh 0 siblings, 1 reply; 40+ messages in thread From: Marshall Conover @ 2022-08-09 19:21 UTC (permalink / raw) To: Larry McVoy; +Cc: Tom Teixeira, The Eunuchs Hysterical Society > I've always believed that pic was so well designed because it took a day to get the print out (back then), so you had to have a language where you could see what it was doing. > I'll confess: I was never very good at bench checking batch programs, but only had at most a handful of assignments in college: generally cycles were cheap on time-sharing systems and I quickly adapted to interactive debugging. Along these lines, if I'm understanding correctly, my hunch would be that part of the precision being discussed was born out of necessity. When you can't debug interactively, you're forced to be precise with your changes, influencing how you think. On the flip side, when interactive development is an option, there's an easy route to take - and so that's what ends up informing those developmer's thought patterns. I think it's possible that if you were to force a new generation to only be able to iterate once a day, you may end up with a new generation with that precision. Perhaps material for a fun experiment for the teachers on the list. Cheers, Marshall On Tue, Aug 9, 2022 at 3:01 PM Larry McVoy <lm@mcvoy.com> wrote: > > On Tue, Aug 09, 2022 at 02:54:08PM -0400, Tom Teixeira wrote: > > On 8/9/22 2:49 PM, Larry McVoy wrote: > > >On Tue, Aug 09, 2022 at 01:42:32PM -0400, Noel Chiappa wrote: > > >> > From: Rob Pike > > >> > > >> > I still marvel at the productivity and precision of his generatio > > >> > > >>We noticed the same thing happening in the IETF, as the number of people > > >>working on networking went up. The explanation is really quite simple, once > > >>you think about it a bit. > > >> > > >>If you have a very small group, it is quite possible to have a very high > > >>level. (Not if it's selected randomly, of course; there has to be some > > >>sorting function.) However, as the group gets much larger, it is > > >>_necessarily_ much more 'average' in the skill/etc level of its members. > > >I used to complain about this at Sun and was dryly told "We get it, > > >Larry, you are yeast. You need flour to make bread." > > > > > >And as time went on, I found that the smart people tended to find each > > >other. So it was fine. > > > > > >It is more fun when it is a highly curated group of smart people. Made > > >me work hard to keep up. > > > > Put another way, "If you're always the smartest person in the room, you're > > spending your time in the wrong rooms." > > I was usually the dumbest one in the room, I found the right rooms :-) > > I personally like being "dumb", the other people just make you want to > work harder to reach their level. Back when I used to play pool pretty > seriously, I always tried to play people better than me. You get lazy > if you are the best. > > -- > --- > Larry McVoy Retired to fishing http://www.mcvoy.com/lm/boat ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 40+ messages in thread
* [TUHS] Re: SNOBOL and RATSNO 2022-08-09 19:21 ` Marshall Conover @ 2022-08-09 20:19 ` Warner Losh 0 siblings, 0 replies; 40+ messages in thread From: Warner Losh @ 2022-08-09 20:19 UTC (permalink / raw) To: Marshall Conover; +Cc: Tom Teixeira, The Eunuchs Hysterical Society [-- Attachment #1: Type: text/plain, Size: 4669 bytes --] On Tue, Aug 9, 2022 at 1:23 PM Marshall Conover <marzhall.o@gmail.com> wrote: > > I've always believed that pic was so well designed > because it took a day to get the print out (back then), so you had to > have a language where you could see what it was doing. > > > I'll confess: I was never very good at bench checking batch programs, > but only had at most a handful of assignments in college: generally cycles > were cheap on time-sharing systems and I quickly adapted to interactive > debugging. > > Along these lines, if I'm understanding correctly, my hunch would be > that part of the precision being discussed was born out of necessity. > When you can't debug interactively, you're forced to be precise with > your changes, influencing how you think. On the flip side, when > interactive development is an option, there's an easy route to take - > and so that's what ends up informing those developmer's thought > patterns. > > I think it's possible that if you were to force a new generation to > only be able to iterate once a day, you may end up with a new > generation with that precision. Perhaps material for a fun experiment > for the teachers on the list. > I think it was a confluence of many things. Programs had to be smaller (bigger ones didn't fit). Interactive terminals were non-existant or extremely limited (80x24). Printing out listings and 'desk checking' the output was something you had plenty of time to do. Computing budgets were tiny: You had only so many $$$ for your runs and if you made too many, you'd run out of $$$ before you were done (more applicable as a student than as a professional post school though). Consequently your time was plentiful and computer time was scarce. Plus people from that generation tended to think globally and didn't compartmentalize as much as is done today (where people are told that everything below you in the stack can be considered hardware don't worry about how it works). The systems were also simpler to program, since all the 'go fast' caveats you have to cope with in todays system didn't exists, which also encourage global thinking. Plus, computer programmers tended to be the best and the brightest because they were the only ones that could (a) afford to undertake their study and (b) the only ones that didn't wash out of very demanding university programs. Plus companies tended to only trust their super expensive machines to the best and the brightest, further enhancing their skills (which we now know are built with repetition) while the less bright tended to be relegated to other machines with fewer opportunities. (yes, I know the previous paragraph way over-generalizes a very complex and subtle dynamic that was at play, hence 'tendency' rather than some other more definite word). Warner > Cheers, > > Marshall > > On Tue, Aug 9, 2022 at 3:01 PM Larry McVoy <lm@mcvoy.com> wrote: > > > > On Tue, Aug 09, 2022 at 02:54:08PM -0400, Tom Teixeira wrote: > > > On 8/9/22 2:49 PM, Larry McVoy wrote: > > > >On Tue, Aug 09, 2022 at 01:42:32PM -0400, Noel Chiappa wrote: > > > >> > From: Rob Pike > > > >> > > > >> > I still marvel at the productivity and precision of his > generatio > > > >> > > > >>We noticed the same thing happening in the IETF, as the number of > people > > > >>working on networking went up. The explanation is really quite > simple, once > > > >>you think about it a bit. > > > >> > > > >>If you have a very small group, it is quite possible to have a very > high > > > >>level. (Not if it's selected randomly, of course; there has to be > some > > > >>sorting function.) However, as the group gets much larger, it is > > > >>_necessarily_ much more 'average' in the skill/etc level of its > members. > > > >I used to complain about this at Sun and was dryly told "We get it, > > > >Larry, you are yeast. You need flour to make bread." > > > > > > > >And as time went on, I found that the smart people tended to find each > > > >other. So it was fine. > > > > > > > >It is more fun when it is a highly curated group of smart people. > Made > > > >me work hard to keep up. > > > > > > Put another way, "If you're always the smartest person in the room, > you're > > > spending your time in the wrong rooms." > > > > I was usually the dumbest one in the room, I found the right rooms :-) > > > > I personally like being "dumb", the other people just make you want to > > work harder to reach their level. Back when I used to play pool pretty > > seriously, I always tried to play people better than me. You get lazy > > if you are the best. > > > > -- > > --- > > Larry McVoy Retired to fishing > http://www.mcvoy.com/lm/boat > [-- Attachment #2: Type: text/html, Size: 6156 bytes --] ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 40+ messages in thread
* [TUHS] Re: SNOBOL and RATSNO 2022-08-09 17:42 Noel Chiappa 2022-08-09 18:49 ` Larry McVoy @ 2022-08-10 21:13 ` Bill Cheswick 2022-08-10 21:30 ` John Cowan 1 sibling, 1 reply; 40+ messages in thread From: Bill Cheswick @ 2022-08-10 21:13 UTC (permalink / raw) To: jnc; +Cc: tuhs “The trouble with folk songs is thst they are written by the people.” -Tom Lehrer. Ches > On Aug 9, 2022, at 13:42, jnc@mercury.lcs.mit.edu wrote: > > However, as the group gets much larger, it is > _necessarily_ much more 'average' in the skill/etc level of its members. ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 40+ messages in thread
* [TUHS] Re: SNOBOL and RATSNO 2022-08-10 21:13 ` Bill Cheswick @ 2022-08-10 21:30 ` John Cowan 2022-08-11 16:08 ` Marc Donner 0 siblings, 1 reply; 40+ messages in thread From: John Cowan @ 2022-08-10 21:30 UTC (permalink / raw) To: Bill Cheswick; +Cc: jnc, tuhs [-- Attachment #1: Type: text/plain, Size: 448 bytes --] On Wed, Aug 10, 2022 at 5:13 PM Bill Cheswick <ches@cheswick.com> wrote: > “The trouble with folk songs is thst they are written by the people.” -Tom > Lehrer. Lehrer's songs, especially "The Periodic Table", have now become subject to the folk process themselves. "Goldilocks and the Three Bears" was originally written by the Romantic poet Robert Southey, although in his version the bears' antagonist was a "wicked old woman". [-- Attachment #2: Type: text/html, Size: 1087 bytes --] ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 40+ messages in thread
* [TUHS] Re: SNOBOL and RATSNO 2022-08-10 21:30 ` John Cowan @ 2022-08-11 16:08 ` Marc Donner 0 siblings, 0 replies; 40+ messages in thread From: Marc Donner @ 2022-08-11 16:08 UTC (permalink / raw) To: John Cowan; +Cc: jnc, tuhs [-- Attachment #1: Type: text/plain, Size: 714 bytes --] Here's your blackmail video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=02N_UOmT8Kk&t=2s ===== nygeek.net mindthegapdialogs.com/home <https://www.mindthegapdialogs.com/home> On Wed, Aug 10, 2022 at 5:32 PM John Cowan <cowan@ccil.org> wrote: > > > On Wed, Aug 10, 2022 at 5:13 PM Bill Cheswick <ches@cheswick.com> wrote: > >> “The trouble with folk songs is thst they are written by the people.” >> -Tom Lehrer. > > > Lehrer's songs, especially "The Periodic Table", have now become subject > to the folk process themselves. "Goldilocks and the Three Bears" was > originally written by the Romantic poet Robert Southey, although in his > version the bears' antagonist was a "wicked old woman". > [-- Attachment #2: Type: text/html, Size: 2002 bytes --] ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 40+ messages in thread
* [TUHS] Line Numbers Before SysIII nl? BSD num? @ 2022-07-23 2:57 segaloco via TUHS 2022-07-23 5:56 ` [TUHS] " markus schnalke 0 siblings, 1 reply; 40+ messages in thread From: segaloco via TUHS @ 2022-07-23 2:57 UTC (permalink / raw) To: The Eunuchs Hysterical Society I've been looking into the history of the nl command lately, which has gotten me curious as to what facilities folks have used at various points in UNIX history for line numbering. The earliest version of nl I've found is in System III, and it does not derive from Research, PWB, or CB. Neither does it come from BSD, although BSD has the num command which, according to the source commentary, aims to replicate the '#' behavior of ex. Were there any other facilities for printing back arbitrary lines from a file with line numbers? Also, would anyone happen to know if the above appearance of nl might have been from the USG line given none of the others feature it? It neither seems to be in V8-V10. nl has managed to find its way into the POSIX standard, so it definitely has some staying power wherever it came from. - Matt G. ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 40+ messages in thread
* [TUHS] Re: Line Numbers Before SysIII nl? BSD num? 2022-07-23 2:57 [TUHS] Line Numbers Before SysIII nl? BSD num? segaloco via TUHS @ 2022-07-23 5:56 ` markus schnalke 2022-07-23 7:55 ` segaloco via TUHS 0 siblings, 1 reply; 40+ messages in thread From: markus schnalke @ 2022-07-23 5:56 UTC (permalink / raw) To: tuhs Hoi. [2022-07-23 04:57] segaloco via TUHS <tuhs@tuhs.org> > > Were there any other facilities for printing back arbitrary lines > from a file with line numbers? As I'm currently thinking a lot about ed, this comes to mind: echo 23,42n | ed - file meillo ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 40+ messages in thread
* [TUHS] Re: Line Numbers Before SysIII nl? BSD num? 2022-07-23 5:56 ` [TUHS] " markus schnalke @ 2022-07-23 7:55 ` segaloco via TUHS 2022-07-23 11:01 ` Dan Cross 0 siblings, 1 reply; 40+ messages in thread From: segaloco via TUHS @ 2022-07-23 7:55 UTC (permalink / raw) To: markus schnalke; +Cc: tuhs > On Friday, July 22nd, 2022 at 10:56 PM, markus schnalke <meillo@marmaro.de> wrote: > > As I'm currently thinking a lot about ed, this comes to mind: > > echo 23,42n | ed - file The n rule is actually what lead me to studying nl. It's also supported in System III but not V7, although ed's n does show up in V8-V10. The implementation looks similar although integrated slightly differently. Probably from the same source though. There's also an implementation in 4.4BSD-Lite, although plan old 4.4 with the AT&T encumbered ed doesn't implement n. So a rough timeline I can see for line number filters based on source code, old docs, etc: 1977 - num and ex's '#' commands are introduced for 2BSD release 1980 - nl and ed's 'n' commands are introduced in System III 1980 - num's trail goes dark between 4 and 4.1c BSD 1982 - System V adopts ex, including '#' 1985 - Research has adopted ed with n by now as well as ex, never adopts nl 1992 - POSIX.2 is released, codifying nl, ed with n, and ex with # 1992 - nl appears in GNU fileutils 1994 - 4.4BSD-Lite ed includes n 1999 - NetBSD 1.4 adds nl 2002 - FreeBSD 4.5 adds nl 2005 - MacOSX 10.4 with text_cmds-47 adds nl 2013 - MINIX 3.2.1 adopts NetBSD nl 2014 - OpenBSD 5.5 adds nl So all in all, num was an attempt that petered out, but # stayed in ex. System III and 4.4BSD-Lite ed derivatives implement n, and nl was introduced in System III for the AT&T line and slowly cropped up elsewhere. System V picked up ex in 1982, allowing nl, ed with n, and ex with # in the AT&T line. GNU had one out of the gate when POSIX hit. BSDs were late to the party with regards to both ed with n as well as nl, with nl only being adopted after the last Berkeley releases and subsequent fracturing. So thus far it seems the earliest line numberer to see wide use was probably ex's #. System III's nl became the ubiquitous tool for the job and was then slowly adopted elsewhere. Ed rides a fine middle ground with the n command that saw wider adoption earlier. I still have to wonder if there was something earlier though. - Matt ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 40+ messages in thread
* [TUHS] Re: Line Numbers Before SysIII nl? BSD num? 2022-07-23 7:55 ` segaloco via TUHS @ 2022-07-23 11:01 ` Dan Cross 2022-07-23 11:20 ` John Cowan 0 siblings, 1 reply; 40+ messages in thread From: Dan Cross @ 2022-07-23 11:01 UTC (permalink / raw) To: segaloco; +Cc: The Eunuchs Hysterical Society [-- Attachment #1: Type: text/plain, Size: 859 bytes --] On Sat, Jul 23, 2022, 3:56 AM segaloco via TUHS <tuhs@tuhs.org> wrote: > [snip] > So all in all, num was an attempt that petered out, but # stayed in ex. > System III and 4.4BSD-Lite ed derivatives implement n, and nl was > introduced in System III for the AT&T line and slowly cropped up > elsewhere. System V picked up ex in 1982, allowing nl, ed with n, and ex > with # in the AT&T line. GNU had one out of the gate when POSIX hit. BSDs > were late to the party with regards to both ed with n as well as nl, with > nl only being adopted after the last Berkeley releases and subsequent > fracturing. > It may be worth noting that BSD had `cat -n` in 4BSD by October, 1980: https://minnie.tuhs.org/cgi-bin/utree.pl?file=4BSD/usr/man/man1/cat.1 That may explain the relatively late incorporation of `nl` in, at least, the BSD lineage. - Dan C. [-- Attachment #2: Type: text/html, Size: 1546 bytes --] ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 40+ messages in thread
* [TUHS] Re: Line Numbers Before SysIII nl? BSD num? 2022-07-23 11:01 ` Dan Cross @ 2022-07-23 11:20 ` John Cowan 2022-07-23 12:00 ` Dan Cross 0 siblings, 1 reply; 40+ messages in thread From: John Cowan @ 2022-07-23 11:20 UTC (permalink / raw) To: Dan Cross; +Cc: segaloco, The Eunuchs Hysterical Society [-- Attachment #1: Type: text/plain, Size: 553 bytes --] On Sat, Jul 23, 2022 at 7:03 AM Dan Cross <crossd@gmail.com> wrote: > It may be worth noting that BSD had `cat -n` in 4BSD by October, 1980: > https://minnie.tuhs.org/cgi-bin/utree.pl?file=4BSD/usr/man/man1/cat.1 > > That may explain the relatively late incorporation of `nl` in, at least, > the BSD lineage. > An obvious approach, which would leave no real traces in documentation, would be: $ awk '{print NR, $0}' A more precise emulation would be more of a pain to type: $ awk '{printf("%6d\t%s\n", NR, $0)}' but perfectly usable in a script. [-- Attachment #2: Type: text/html, Size: 2349 bytes --] ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 40+ messages in thread
* [TUHS] Re: Line Numbers Before SysIII nl? BSD num? 2022-07-23 11:20 ` John Cowan @ 2022-07-23 12:00 ` Dan Cross 2022-07-24 19:02 ` Tomasz Rola 0 siblings, 1 reply; 40+ messages in thread From: Dan Cross @ 2022-07-23 12:00 UTC (permalink / raw) To: John Cowan; +Cc: segaloco, The Eunuchs Hysterical Society On Sat, Jul 23, 2022 at 7:20 AM John Cowan <cowan@ccil.org> wrote: > On Sat, Jul 23, 2022 at 7:03 AM Dan Cross <crossd@gmail.com> wrote: >> It may be worth noting that BSD had `cat -n` in 4BSD by October, 1980: https://minnie.tuhs.org/cgi-bin/utree.pl?file=4BSD/usr/man/man1/cat.1 >> >> That may explain the relatively late incorporation of `nl` in, at least, the BSD lineage. > > An obvious approach, which would leave no real traces in documentation, would be: > > $ awk '{print NR, $0}' > > A more precise emulation would be more of a pain to type: > > $ awk '{printf("%6d\t%s\n", NR, $0)}' > > but perfectly usable in a script. Yes, but awk wasn't widely available until 7th edition. I imagine work on it began before `num` in 2BSD, but few outside of Bell Labs would have seen it prior to 1978 or so. I wonder if the use-case was just sufficiently rare that no one felt like building a special tool and it was just done on an ad-hoc basis, if necessary. - Dan C. ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 40+ messages in thread
* [TUHS] Re: Line Numbers Before SysIII nl? BSD num? 2022-07-23 12:00 ` Dan Cross @ 2022-07-24 19:02 ` Tomasz Rola 2022-07-28 0:30 ` Tomasz Rola 0 siblings, 1 reply; 40+ messages in thread From: Tomasz Rola @ 2022-07-24 19:02 UTC (permalink / raw) To: The Eunuchs Hysterical Society On Sat, Jul 23, 2022 at 08:00:10AM -0400, Dan Cross wrote: > On Sat, Jul 23, 2022 at 7:20 AM John Cowan <cowan@ccil.org> wrote: [...] > > An obvious approach, which would leave no real traces in documentation, would be: > > > > $ awk '{print NR, $0}' > > > > A more precise emulation would be more of a pain to type: > > > > $ awk '{printf("%6d\t%s\n", NR, $0)}' > > > > but perfectly usable in a script. > > Yes, but awk wasn't widely available until 7th edition. I imagine work > on it began before `num` in 2BSD, but few outside of Bell Labs would > have seen it prior to 1978 or so. > > I wonder if the use-case was just sufficiently rare that no one felt like > building a special tool and it was just done on an ad-hoc basis, if > necessary. My sed-fu is only rudimentary but after banging my head against monitor a bit, I came up with this: $ wc -l c.lisp 90 c.lisp $ cat c.lisp | sed -e '{=;}' | sed -e 'N;s/\n/ /' Seems to print what is needed. Now, just embed it in sh script. A program in C could be longer, and required a compiler. -- Regards, Tomasz Rola -- ** A C programmer asked whether computer had Buddha's nature. ** ** As the answer, master did "rm -rif" on the programmer's home ** ** directory. And then the C programmer became enlightened... ** ** ** ** Tomasz Rola mailto:tomasz_rola@bigfoot.com ** ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 40+ messages in thread
* [TUHS] Re: Line Numbers Before SysIII nl? BSD num? 2022-07-24 19:02 ` Tomasz Rola @ 2022-07-28 0:30 ` Tomasz Rola 2022-07-28 1:03 ` Phil Budne 0 siblings, 1 reply; 40+ messages in thread From: Tomasz Rola @ 2022-07-28 0:30 UTC (permalink / raw) To: The Eunuchs Hysterical Society On Sun, Jul 24, 2022 at 09:02:53PM +0200, Tomasz Rola wrote: > On Sat, Jul 23, 2022 at 08:00:10AM -0400, Dan Cross wrote: > > On Sat, Jul 23, 2022 at 7:20 AM John Cowan <cowan@ccil.org> wrote: > [...] > > > An obvious approach, which would leave no real traces in documentation, would be: > > > > > > $ awk '{print NR, $0}' [...] > > > $ awk '{printf("%6d\t%s\n", NR, $0)}' [...] > > Yes, but awk wasn't widely available until 7th edition. I imagine work > > on it began before `num` in 2BSD, but few outside of Bell Labs would > > have seen it prior to 1978 or so. [...] > $ cat c.lisp | sed -e '{=;}' | sed -e 'N;s/\n/ /' Ok, so maybe this is no longer very interesting subject, but I recalled there was once a language named SNOBOL. Wikipedia says, sed was written around 1974 [1] and about SNOBOL it says, the language was being taught [2] in the late 1960s and early 1970s in universities, so I guess it was quite popular. I wonder if it was ported to Unix early enough to help before sed became available? Anyway, I have got Phil Budne's implementation [3] and after usual drill (configure, make, make install, stow) I could do this: $ snobol4 -b -L ./numlines02.sno < numlines02.sno 1 lnum = 0 2 loop lnum = lnum + 1 3 output = lnum " " input :s(loop) 4 end The first version did not work so well: $ snobol4 -b -L ./numlines01.sno < numlines01.sno | head -8 1 lnum = 0 2 LOOP line = INPUT 3 * Here: detect EOF (how?) and jump to : END 4 lnum = lnum + 1 5 OUTPUT = lnum " " line : S(LOOP) 6 END 7 END 8 END As I already have understood, even after reaching end of input, the INPUT statement keeps returning last line read, counter keeps increasing and last line is being written out for infinity. I have not read any serious docs on SNOBOL yet, so I have no idea how to make the '01' version work, but this is of rather small importance to the list. However, since [2] claims SNOBOL was written in Bell Labs, just like AWK and sed, so perhaps they could be using SNOBOL? [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sed [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SNOBOL [3] http://www.regressive.org/snobol4/ -- Regards, Tomasz Rola -- ** A C programmer asked whether computer had Buddha's nature. ** ** As the answer, master did "rm -rif" on the programmer's home ** ** directory. And then the C programmer became enlightened... ** ** ** ** Tomasz Rola mailto:tomasz_rola@bigfoot.com ** ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 40+ messages in thread
* [TUHS] Re: Line Numbers Before SysIII nl? BSD num? 2022-07-28 0:30 ` Tomasz Rola @ 2022-07-28 1:03 ` Phil Budne 2022-07-28 4:13 ` [TUHS] SNOBOL and RATSNO William H. Mitchell 0 siblings, 1 reply; 40+ messages in thread From: Phil Budne @ 2022-07-28 1:03 UTC (permalink / raw) To: tuhs > Anyway, I have got Phil Budne's implementation C'est moi! SNOBOL came out of Bell Labs in Holmdel NJ. There was a SNOBOL3 implementation in Unix 6th Edition days called "sno". As far as I know Macro SNOBOL4 (that my CSNOBOL4 is a port of) never was ported to the PDP-11 (just not enough address space), but there was a proposal (at least) for a SNOBOL4 implementation for the '11 called ELFBOL. Macro SPITBOL (a faster implementation of SNOBOL4) was available on the Research Unix VAXen (Andrew Koenig did a C-like preprocessor called SNOCONE -- SNOBOL with some sugar). Phil ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 40+ messages in thread
* [TUHS] SNOBOL and RATSNO 2022-07-28 1:03 ` Phil Budne @ 2022-07-28 4:13 ` William H. Mitchell 2022-07-29 4:28 ` [TUHS] " Dave Horsfall 2022-07-29 5:07 ` Tomasz Rola 0 siblings, 2 replies; 40+ messages in thread From: William H. Mitchell @ 2022-07-28 4:13 UTC (permalink / raw) To: tuhs If memory serves, Ralph Griswold once told me that the four versions of SNOBOL, culminating with SNOBOL4, took, respectively, a day, a week, a month, and year to implement. Related to SNOBOL, something I’ve wondered about for years is whether I may have been the only regular user of RATSNO, which Dave Hanson created as a test of RATFOR’s retargetability. I stumbled across RATSNO on the Icon V2 tape, and used it for quite a bit of my undergraduate programming at NC State in 1980-81. Phil Budne: Thanks for your CSNOBOL4 implementation! I’ve used it to show students SNOBOL4 in a comparative languages class at the U of Arizona. (I was thinking your name sounded familiar!) > On Jul 27, 2022, at 7:03 PM, Phil Budne <phil@ultimate.com> wrote: > >> Anyway, I have got Phil Budne's implementation > > C'est moi! SNOBOL came out of Bell Labs in Holmdel NJ. > There was a SNOBOL3 implementation in Unix 6th Edition days called "sno". > > As far as I know Macro SNOBOL4 (that my CSNOBOL4 is a port of) never > was ported to the PDP-11 (just not enough address space), but there > was a proposal (at least) for a SNOBOL4 implementation for the '11 > called ELFBOL. > > Macro SPITBOL (a faster implementation of SNOBOL4) was available on > the Research Unix VAXen (Andrew Koenig did a C-like preprocessor > called SNOCONE -- SNOBOL with some sugar). > > Phil ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 40+ messages in thread
* [TUHS] Re: SNOBOL and RATSNO 2022-07-28 4:13 ` [TUHS] SNOBOL and RATSNO William H. Mitchell @ 2022-07-29 4:28 ` Dave Horsfall 2022-07-29 5:07 ` Tomasz Rola 1 sibling, 0 replies; 40+ messages in thread From: Dave Horsfall @ 2022-07-29 4:28 UTC (permalink / raw) To: The Eunuchs Hysterical Society; +Cc: Computer Old Farts Followers I did get SPITBOL to work past its expiry date on OS/360 :-) It was dubbed as the "Superzap of the year" by one of my CompSci lecturers (Dr. G.McMahon, UNSW). The first couple of time-bombs were easy to find, but not so the rest (long story). Probably belongs over on COFF now... -- Dave ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 40+ messages in thread
* [TUHS] Re: SNOBOL and RATSNO 2022-07-28 4:13 ` [TUHS] SNOBOL and RATSNO William H. Mitchell 2022-07-29 4:28 ` [TUHS] " Dave Horsfall @ 2022-07-29 5:07 ` Tomasz Rola 2022-08-09 5:12 ` Jonathan Gevaryahu 1 sibling, 1 reply; 40+ messages in thread From: Tomasz Rola @ 2022-07-29 5:07 UTC (permalink / raw) To: The Eunuchs Hysterical Society On Wed, Jul 27, 2022 at 10:13:04PM -0600, William H. Mitchell wrote: > [...] > Phil Budne: Thanks for your CSNOBOL4 implementation! I’ve used it to show students SNOBOL4 in a comparative languages class at the U of Arizona. (I was thinking your name sounded familiar!) > > > On Jul 27, 2022, at 7:03 PM, Phil Budne <phil@ultimate.com> wrote: > > > >> Anyway, I have got Phil Budne's implementation > > > > C'est moi! SNOBOL came out of Bell Labs in Holmdel NJ. > > There was a SNOBOL3 implementation in Unix 6th Edition days called "sno". [...] Yes, I have had a look and it seems to be very nicely written project. Oh, and there is plenty of Snobol4 code to look at, too... Thank you. -- Regards, Tomasz Rola -- ** A C programmer asked whether computer had Buddha's nature. ** ** As the answer, master did "rm -rif" on the programmer's home ** ** directory. And then the C programmer became enlightened... ** ** ** ** Tomasz Rola mailto:tomasz_rola@bigfoot.com ** ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 40+ messages in thread
* [TUHS] Re: SNOBOL and RATSNO 2022-07-29 5:07 ` Tomasz Rola @ 2022-08-09 5:12 ` Jonathan Gevaryahu 2022-08-09 6:11 ` Rob Pike 0 siblings, 1 reply; 40+ messages in thread From: Jonathan Gevaryahu @ 2022-08-09 5:12 UTC (permalink / raw) To: tuhs On 7/29/2022 1:07 AM, Tomasz Rola wrote: > On Wed, Jul 27, 2022 at 10:13:04PM -0600, William H. Mitchell wrote: > [...] >> Phil Budne: Thanks for your CSNOBOL4 implementation! I’ve used it to show students SNOBOL4 in a comparative languages class at the U of Arizona. (I was thinking your name sounded familiar!) >> >>> On Jul 27, 2022, at 7:03 PM, Phil Budne <phil@ultimate.com> wrote: >>> >>>> Anyway, I have got Phil Budne's implementation >>> C'est moi! SNOBOL came out of Bell Labs in Holmdel NJ. >>> There was a SNOBOL3 implementation in Unix 6th Edition days called "sno". > [...] > > Yes, I have had a look and it seems to be very nicely written > project. Oh, and there is plenty of Snobol4 code to look at, too... > > Thank you. > Speaking of SNOBOL4, I typed up the SNOBOL code from the NRL Report 7948 (1975) titled "Automatic Translation of English Text to Phonetics by Means of Letter-to-Sound Rules" by Honey Sue Elovitz, Rodney W. Johnson, Astrid McHugh and John E. Shore, and made some minor modifications to make it work properly with the windows/catspaw version of snobol/spitbol. It might not be necessary to make those changes at all, with Phil's version, I'll need to try that! I have both the patched and unpatched versions at https://github.com/Lord-Nightmare/NRL_TextToPhonemes and it does behave correctly/matches the paper (at least the patched version does). I recently (within the past month) discovered another later port of the NRL ruleset from 1978 as part of Peter B. Maggs' ANGLOPHONE package for S-100 systems, intended for use with the Computalker CT-1 speech synthesis S-100 card. Apparently Rodney W. Johnson had continued developing the rules even after the 1975/1976 publications of the NRL report and the IEEE ITASSP version of said report, and I haven't updated the bibliography on the github readme yet. Jonathan G. -- Jonathan Gevaryahu AKA Lord Nightmare jgevaryahu@gmail.com jgevaryahu@hotmail.com ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 40+ messages in thread
* [TUHS] Re: SNOBOL and RATSNO 2022-08-09 5:12 ` Jonathan Gevaryahu @ 2022-08-09 6:11 ` Rob Pike 2022-08-09 13:34 ` Clem Cole ` (2 more replies) 0 siblings, 3 replies; 40+ messages in thread From: Rob Pike @ 2022-08-09 6:11 UTC (permalink / raw) To: Jonathan Gevaryahu; +Cc: The Eunuchs Hysterical Society [-- Attachment #1: Type: text/plain, Size: 2818 bytes --] We're probably well off topic now but... Many years ago I ran into Bob Dewar on a visit to Cambridge University and we got to talking. He said that the original implementation of SPITBOL, for the System/360, was in assembler (of course), and written by him and Belcher (?). The story he told was that they wrote it all down first, put it on punch cards, and sent it to the IBM machine. The next day they got back a listing with a bunch of errors. They iterated. By the fourth round—fifth day—they had a working SPITBOL. I still marvel at the productivity and precision of his generation of programmers. -rob On Tue, Aug 9, 2022 at 3:13 PM Jonathan Gevaryahu <jgevaryahu@hotmail.com> wrote: > On 7/29/2022 1:07 AM, Tomasz Rola wrote: > > On Wed, Jul 27, 2022 at 10:13:04PM -0600, William H. Mitchell wrote: > > [...] > >> Phil Budne: Thanks for your CSNOBOL4 implementation! I’ve used it to > show students SNOBOL4 in a comparative languages class at the U of > Arizona. (I was thinking your name sounded familiar!) > >> > >>> On Jul 27, 2022, at 7:03 PM, Phil Budne <phil@ultimate.com> wrote: > >>> > >>>> Anyway, I have got Phil Budne's implementation > >>> C'est moi! SNOBOL came out of Bell Labs in Holmdel NJ. > >>> There was a SNOBOL3 implementation in Unix 6th Edition days called > "sno". > > [...] > > > > Yes, I have had a look and it seems to be very nicely written > > project. Oh, and there is plenty of Snobol4 code to look at, too... > > > > Thank you. > > > Speaking of SNOBOL4, I typed up the SNOBOL code from the NRL Report 7948 > (1975) titled "Automatic Translation of English Text to Phonetics by > Means of Letter-to-Sound Rules" by Honey Sue Elovitz, Rodney W. Johnson, > Astrid McHugh and John E. Shore, and made some minor modifications to > make it work properly with the windows/catspaw version of snobol/spitbol. > > It might not be necessary to make those changes at all, with Phil's > version, I'll need to try that! > > I have both the patched and unpatched versions at > https://github.com/Lord-Nightmare/NRL_TextToPhonemes and it does behave > correctly/matches the paper (at least the patched version does). > > I recently (within the past month) discovered another later port of the > NRL ruleset from 1978 as part of Peter B. Maggs' ANGLOPHONE package for > S-100 systems, intended for use with the Computalker CT-1 speech > synthesis S-100 card. Apparently Rodney W. Johnson had continued > developing the rules even after the 1975/1976 publications of the NRL > report and the IEEE ITASSP version of said report, and I haven't updated > the bibliography on the github readme yet. > > > Jonathan G. > > -- > Jonathan Gevaryahu AKA Lord Nightmare > jgevaryahu@gmail.com > jgevaryahu@hotmail.com > > [-- Attachment #2: Type: text/html, Size: 4168 bytes --] ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 40+ messages in thread
* [TUHS] Re: SNOBOL and RATSNO 2022-08-09 6:11 ` Rob Pike @ 2022-08-09 13:34 ` Clem Cole 2022-08-09 15:15 ` Andrew Hume 2022-08-09 15:39 ` Richard Salz 2022-08-09 13:56 ` Larry McVoy 2022-08-09 16:45 ` William H. Mitchell 2 siblings, 2 replies; 40+ messages in thread From: Clem Cole @ 2022-08-09 13:34 UTC (permalink / raw) To: Rob Pike; +Cc: The Eunuchs Hysterical Society [-- Attachment #1: Type: text/plain, Size: 372 bytes --] On Tue, Aug 9, 2022 at 2:12 AM Rob Pike <robpike@gmail.com> wrote: > > I still marvel at the productivity and precision of his generation of > programmers. > Amen. When I was first learning the ins and outs of the implementation of the York/APL System for the 360, I was regaled with similar stories and hoped that I could measure up to their standards. ᐧ [-- Attachment #2: Type: text/html, Size: 1434 bytes --] ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 40+ messages in thread
* [TUHS] Re: SNOBOL and RATSNO 2022-08-09 13:34 ` Clem Cole @ 2022-08-09 15:15 ` Andrew Hume 2022-08-09 18:26 ` Clem Cole ` (2 more replies) 2022-08-09 15:39 ` Richard Salz 1 sibling, 3 replies; 40+ messages in thread From: Andrew Hume @ 2022-08-09 15:15 UTC (permalink / raw) To: Clem Cole; +Cc: The Eunuchs Hysterical Society [-- Attachment #1: Type: text/plain, Size: 422 bytes --] rob, clem: has there been a shift in ability? or is this more likely a sampling bias (because there were so many fewer programmers then)? > On Aug 9, 2022, at 6:34 AM, Clem Cole <clemc@ccc.com> wrote: > > > > On Tue, Aug 9, 2022 at 2:12 AM Rob Pike <robpike@gmail.com <mailto:robpike@gmail.com>> wrote: > > I still marvel at the productivity and precision of his generation of programmers. > Amen. [-- Attachment #2: Type: text/html, Size: 1616 bytes --] ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 40+ messages in thread
* [TUHS] Re: SNOBOL and RATSNO 2022-08-09 15:15 ` Andrew Hume @ 2022-08-09 18:26 ` Clem Cole 2022-08-09 18:52 ` Tom Teixeira 2022-08-09 21:25 ` Rob Pike 2 siblings, 0 replies; 40+ messages in thread From: Clem Cole @ 2022-08-09 18:26 UTC (permalink / raw) To: Andrew Hume; +Cc: The Eunuchs Hysterical Society [-- Attachment #1: Type: text/plain, Size: 522 bytes --] On Tue, Aug 9, 2022 at 11:15 AM Andrew Hume <andrew@humeweb.com> wrote: > rob, clem: > > has there been a shift in ability? or is this more likely a sampling bias > (because there were so many fewer programmers then)? > Certainly part of it. But I think was more likely the type of person than the number. In those days because the tools and use of them required extreme precision, only the precise found their way. What's the Pixar Incredible's line: *If everyone is super, no one will be.* ᐧ ᐧ [-- Attachment #2: Type: text/html, Size: 2044 bytes --] ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 40+ messages in thread
* [TUHS] Re: SNOBOL and RATSNO 2022-08-09 15:15 ` Andrew Hume 2022-08-09 18:26 ` Clem Cole @ 2022-08-09 18:52 ` Tom Teixeira 2022-08-09 21:25 ` Rob Pike 2 siblings, 0 replies; 40+ messages in thread From: Tom Teixeira @ 2022-08-09 18:52 UTC (permalink / raw) To: The Eunuchs Hysterical Society [-- Attachment #1: Type: text/plain, Size: 1044 bytes --] I'll confess: I was never very good at bench checking batch programs, but only had at most a handful of assignments in college: generally cycles were cheap on time-sharing systems and I quickly adapted to interactive debugging. Over time (with embedded systems in networking gear and other applications), that wasn't possible and the new skill I admired was being able to add effective logging to diagnose problems. And since most of those systems were some combination of real-time/multiprocessor/multithreaded, it was generally not possible to deterministically repeat the sequence. On 8/9/22 11:15 AM, Andrew Hume wrote: > rob, clem: > > has there been a shift in ability? or is this more likely a sampling bias > (because there were so many fewer programmers then)? > > >> On Aug 9, 2022, at 6:34 AM, Clem Cole <clemc@ccc.com> wrote: >> >> >> >> On Tue, Aug 9, 2022 at 2:12 AM Rob Pike <robpike@gmail.com> wrote: >> >> >> I still marvel at the productivity and precision of his >> generation of programmers. >> >> Amen. > [-- Attachment #2: Type: text/html, Size: 3578 bytes --] ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 40+ messages in thread
* [TUHS] Re: SNOBOL and RATSNO 2022-08-09 15:15 ` Andrew Hume 2022-08-09 18:26 ` Clem Cole 2022-08-09 18:52 ` Tom Teixeira @ 2022-08-09 21:25 ` Rob Pike 2 siblings, 0 replies; 40+ messages in thread From: Rob Pike @ 2022-08-09 21:25 UTC (permalink / raw) To: Andrew Hume; +Cc: The Eunuchs Hysterical Society [-- Attachment #1: Type: text/plain, Size: 593 bytes --] I think both factors were relevant, as well as the preciousness and pace of it all, as discussed by others here. -rob On Wed, Aug 10, 2022 at 1:15 AM Andrew Hume <andrew@humeweb.com> wrote: > rob, clem: > > has there been a shift in ability? or is this more likely a sampling bias > (because there were so many fewer programmers then)? > > > On Aug 9, 2022, at 6:34 AM, Clem Cole <clemc@ccc.com> wrote: > > > > On Tue, Aug 9, 2022 at 2:12 AM Rob Pike <robpike@gmail.com> wrote: > >> >> I still marvel at the productivity and precision of his generation of >> programmers. >> > Amen. > > > [-- Attachment #2: Type: text/html, Size: 1995 bytes --] ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 40+ messages in thread
* [TUHS] Re: SNOBOL and RATSNO 2022-08-09 13:34 ` Clem Cole 2022-08-09 15:15 ` Andrew Hume @ 2022-08-09 15:39 ` Richard Salz 1 sibling, 0 replies; 40+ messages in thread From: Richard Salz @ 2022-08-09 15:39 UTC (permalink / raw) To: Clem Cole; +Cc: The Eunuchs Hysterical Society [-- Attachment #1: Type: text/plain, Size: 637 bytes --] On Tue, Aug 9, 2022 at 9:36 AM Clem Cole <clemc@ccc.com> wrote: > > On Tue, Aug 9, 2022 at 2:12 AM Rob Pike <robpike@gmail.com> wrote: > >> >> I still marvel at the productivity and precision of his generation of >> programmers. >> > Amen. > > When I was first learning the ins and outs of the implementation of the > York/APL System for the 360, I was regaled with similar stories and hoped > that I could measure up to their standards. > If you don't know about Mel who wrote a cheating blackjack game for a drum memory machine, read https://www.cs.utah.edu/~elb/folklore/mel.html And the postscript. > ᐧ > [-- Attachment #2: Type: text/html, Size: 2181 bytes --] ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 40+ messages in thread
* [TUHS] Re: SNOBOL and RATSNO 2022-08-09 6:11 ` Rob Pike 2022-08-09 13:34 ` Clem Cole @ 2022-08-09 13:56 ` Larry McVoy 2022-08-09 16:45 ` William H. Mitchell 2 siblings, 0 replies; 40+ messages in thread From: Larry McVoy @ 2022-08-09 13:56 UTC (permalink / raw) To: Rob Pike; +Cc: The Eunuchs Hysterical Society On Tue, Aug 09, 2022 at 04:11:38PM +1000, Rob Pike wrote: > We're probably well off topic now but... > > Many years ago I ran into Bob Dewar on a visit to Cambridge University and > we got to talking. He said that the original implementation of SPITBOL, for > the System/360, was in assembler (of course), and written by him and > Belcher (?). The story he told was that they wrote it all down first, put > it on punch cards, and sent it to the IBM machine. The next day they got > back a listing with a bunch of errors. They iterated. By the fourth > round???fifth day???they had a working SPITBOL. > > I still marvel at the productivity and precision of his generation of > programmers. I had the same reaction to pic(1). You could look at the code and "see" what it was doing. I've always believed that pic was so well designed because it took a day to get the print out (back then), so you had to have a language where you could see what it was doing. ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 40+ messages in thread
* [TUHS] Re: SNOBOL and RATSNO 2022-08-09 6:11 ` Rob Pike 2022-08-09 13:34 ` Clem Cole 2022-08-09 13:56 ` Larry McVoy @ 2022-08-09 16:45 ` William H. Mitchell 2 siblings, 0 replies; 40+ messages in thread From: William H. Mitchell @ 2022-08-09 16:45 UTC (permalink / raw) To: tuhs A cool thing you buy in those days was the full source code for SPITBOL, on microfiche. I bought a copy and a number of my friends did, too. It was really beautiful code. > On Aug 8, 2022, at 11:11 PM, Rob Pike <robpike@gmail.com> wrote: > > We're probably well off topic now but... > > Many years ago I ran into Bob Dewar on a visit to Cambridge University and we got to talking. He said that the original implementation of SPITBOL, for the System/360, was in assembler (of course), and written by him and Belcher (?). The story he told was that they wrote it all down first, put it on punch cards, and sent it to the IBM machine. The next day they got back a listing with a bunch of errors. They iterated. By the fourth round—fifth day—they had a working SPITBOL. > > I still marvel at the productivity and precision of his generation of programmers. > > -rob ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 40+ messages in thread
end of thread, other threads:[~2022-08-12 20:50 UTC | newest] Thread overview: 40+ messages (download: mbox.gz / follow: Atom feed) -- links below jump to the message on this page -- 2022-08-09 22:18 [TUHS] Re: SNOBOL and RATSNO Douglas McIlroy 2022-08-09 22:25 ` Larry McVoy 2022-08-10 15:05 ` arnold 2022-08-10 17:14 ` Larry McVoy 2022-08-10 17:37 ` arnold 2022-08-10 17:44 ` [TUHS] Re: SNOBOL and RATSNO [ really pic ] Jon Steinhart 2022-08-10 18:02 ` Larry McVoy 2022-08-10 18:04 ` Jon Steinhart 2022-08-10 18:13 ` [TUHS] Re: pic Michael Kjörling 2022-08-10 18:19 ` Dennis Boone 2022-08-10 18:24 ` Jon Steinhart 2022-08-11 0:10 ` Dan Cross 2022-08-11 12:13 ` arnold 2022-08-11 14:34 ` Dan Cross 2022-08-12 1:52 ` G. Branden Robinson 2022-08-12 6:46 ` arnold 2022-08-12 20:49 ` G. Branden Robinson 2022-08-11 7:37 ` [TUHS] Re: pic's One-way Information Flow. (Was: SNOBOL and RATSNO) Ralph Corderoy 2022-08-10 18:24 ` [TUHS] Re: SNOBOL and RATSNO joe mcguckin -- strict thread matches above, loose matches on Subject: below -- 2022-08-09 17:42 Noel Chiappa 2022-08-09 18:49 ` Larry McVoy 2022-08-09 18:54 ` Tom Teixeira 2022-08-09 19:00 ` Larry McVoy 2022-08-09 19:21 ` Marshall Conover 2022-08-09 20:19 ` Warner Losh 2022-08-10 21:13 ` Bill Cheswick 2022-08-10 21:30 ` John Cowan 2022-08-11 16:08 ` Marc Donner 2022-07-23 2:57 [TUHS] Line Numbers Before SysIII nl? BSD num? segaloco via TUHS 2022-07-23 5:56 ` [TUHS] " markus schnalke 2022-07-23 7:55 ` segaloco via TUHS 2022-07-23 11:01 ` Dan Cross 2022-07-23 11:20 ` John Cowan 2022-07-23 12:00 ` Dan Cross 2022-07-24 19:02 ` Tomasz Rola 2022-07-28 0:30 ` Tomasz Rola 2022-07-28 1:03 ` Phil Budne 2022-07-28 4:13 ` [TUHS] SNOBOL and RATSNO William H. Mitchell 2022-07-29 4:28 ` [TUHS] " Dave Horsfall 2022-07-29 5:07 ` Tomasz Rola 2022-08-09 5:12 ` Jonathan Gevaryahu 2022-08-09 6:11 ` Rob Pike 2022-08-09 13:34 ` Clem Cole 2022-08-09 15:15 ` Andrew Hume 2022-08-09 18:26 ` Clem Cole 2022-08-09 18:52 ` Tom Teixeira 2022-08-09 21:25 ` Rob Pike 2022-08-09 15:39 ` Richard Salz 2022-08-09 13:56 ` Larry McVoy 2022-08-09 16:45 ` William H. Mitchell
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