Real Programmer's Don't Use Pascal

Back in the Golden Era of computers, it was easy to separate the men from the
boys (sometimes called “Real Men” and “Quiche Eaters” respectively).  During
this period, the Real Men were the ones who understood computer programming,
and the Quiche Eaters were the ones who didn't. A real computer programmer
said things like “DO10I=1,10” and “ABEND” 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 B. Feirstein's “Real Men
Don't Eat Quiche”, a 1982 Pocket Books publication, points out that Real Men
don't “relate” to anything and aren't afraid of being impersonal.

But, times change. Today, we are faced with a world in which little old
ladies can get computerized microwave ovens, 12-year-old kids can blow Real
Men out of the water playing Asteroids and Pac-Man, and anyone can buy and
understand his very own personal computer. The Real Programmer is in danger
of being replaced by high school students with TRASH-80s!

There are, however, differences between the typical high school junior
Pac-Man player and a Real Programmer. Knowing these differences may give kids
something to aspire to -- a role model, a father figure. It will also help
keep Real Programmers employed.

The easiest way to determine who the Real Programmers are is by the
programming languages they use. Real Programmers use FORTRAN. Quiche Eaters
use Pascal. Niklaus Wirth, the designer of Pascal, was once asked, “How do
you pronounce your name?” “You can either call me by name, pronouncing it
'Veert', or call me by value, ‘Worth’.” One can tell immediately from this
comment that Niklaus 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 FORTRANG and H compilers. Real Programmers don't
need abstract concept to get their jobs done: they are perfectly happy with a
keypunch, a FORTRAN IV compiler, and a beer. Real Programmers do list
processing, string manipulation, accounting (if they do it at all), and
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.

Computer science academicians have gotten into a structured programming rut
during the past few years. They claim that programs are more easily
understood if some special language constructs and techniques are used.  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. 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-lines programs that
worked. Then I got out into the real world. My first task was to read and
understand a 200000-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 observations on Real Programmers and structured programming: Real
Programmers aren't afraid to use GOTOs. Real Programmers can write
five-page-long DO loops without getting confused. Real Programmers like
arithmetic IF statements because they make the code more interesting. Real
Programmers write self-modifying code, especially if it saves them 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 been in the press lately. Abstract data types,
structures, pointers, lists, and strings have become popular in certain
circles. Wirth, the Quiche Eater, actually wrote an entire book (“Algorithms
+ Data Structure = Programs”. Prentice Hall, 1976) that said 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 and sets are all special cases of arrays and can be treated
as such without complicating your programming language. 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.

What kind of operating system is used by a Real Programmer? CP/M? God forbid.
After all, it is basically a toy operating system. Even little old ladies and
grade school students can use and understand 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 USENET or write
adventure games and research papers.

No, the 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. The great programmer can write JCL without referring to the manual at
all. A truly outstanding programmer can find bugs buried in a six-megabyte
core dump without using a hex calculator.

OS/370 is a truly remarkable operating system. It's possibly to destroy
several day's worth 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 timesharing system that runs
on OS/370, but after careful study I have come to the conclusion that they
are mistaken.

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.
In the early days, when computers had front panels, this was occasionally
done. 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 should be forgotten. Legend has it that Seymour Cray,
inventor of the Cray 1 supercomputer and most of Control Data's computers,
toggled in the first operating system for the CDC 7600 on the front panel
from memory when it was first powered on. Cray, of course, is a Real
Programmer.

One of my favorite Real Programmers was a system programmer for Texas
Instruments. One day, he got a long distance call from a user whose system
had crashed in the middle of some important work. Jim repaired the damage
over phone, getting the user to toggle in disk I/O instructions at the front
panel, repairing system tables in hex, and reading register contents back
over the phone. The moral of this story: while a Real Programmer usually
includes a keypunch and a line printer in his tool kit, he can get along with
just a front panel and a telephone in emergencies.

In some companies, text editing no longer consists of 10 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 Alto
and Dorado computers. Unfortunately, no Real Programmer would ever use a
computer with a operating system 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, such as EMACS and
VI. The problem with these editors is that Real Programmers consider “what
you see is what you get” a bad concept in text editors. The Real Programmer
want's a “you asked for it, you got it” text editor, one that is complicated,
cryptic, powerful, unforgiving, and dangerous. TECO, to be precise.

It has been observed that a TECO command sequence more closely resembles
transmission line noise than readable text. 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 communicating
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 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 programs running on IBM
systems bear no relation to the original FORTRAN code. In a number of 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 anyone 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 include: FORTRAN
preprocessors like MORTRAN and RATFOR. These Cuisinarts of programming are
greate for making quiche. 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 in a card file, because it
implies that the owner cannot leave his important programs unguarded.

Where does the typical Real Programmer work? What kind of programs are worthy
of such talented individuals? You can be sure that no Real Programmer would
be caught dead writing account-receivable programs in COBOL, or sorting
mailing lists for People magazine. A Real Programmer wants tasks of
earth-shaking importance.

Real Programmers work for the Los Alamos National Laboratory, writing atomic
bomb simulations to run on a Cray 1 supercomputer. They also work for the
National Security Agency, decoding Russian transmissions. It was largely due
to the efforts of thousands Real Programmers working for NASA that our boys
got to the moon and back before the cosmonauts. Computers in the Space
Shuttle were programmed by Real Programmers, and these true professionals are
at work for Boeing, designing operating systems for cruise missiles.

Some of the most awesome Real Programmers work at the Jet Propulsion
Laboratory in California. Many of them know the entire operating system of
the Pioneer and Voyager spacecrafts by heart. With a combination of large
ground-based FORTRAN programs and small spacecraft-based assembly language
programs, they can do incredible feats of navigation and improvisation - such
as hitting 10-kilometer-wide windows at Saturn after six years in space, and
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.

One plan for the Galileo spacecraft is to use a gravity 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 programmer for
this kind of navigation.

Many of the world's Real Programmers work for the U.S. government, mainly in
the Defense Department. This is as it should be. Recently, however, a black
cloud has formed on the Real Programmers horizon. It seems that some highly
placed Quiche Eaters at the Defence Department decided that all Defense
programs should be written in some grand unified language called Ada. For a
while, it seemed that Ada was destined to become a language that went against
all the precepts of Real Programming. It is a language with structure, data
types, strong typing, and semicolons. In short, it's 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 methodes for messing with the operating system
and rearranging memory, and Edsgar Dijkstra doesn't like it. Dijkstra, as you
should know, authored “GOTOs Considered Harmful”, a landmark work in
programming methodology applauded by Pascal programmer's 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, providing there's enough
money in it. There are several Real Programmers building video games at
Atari, for example. But they don't play the games. A Real Programmer knows
how to beat the machine every time and there's no challenge in that. Everyone
working at Lucas Film is a Real Programmer because it would be crazy to turn
down the money of 50 million Star War 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 some people doing
graphics to avoid writing COBOL programs.

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. Here are 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 flow
charts in the sand. A Real Programmer goes to a disco to watch the light
show. At a funeral, the Real Programmer is the one saying “Poor George. And
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.

What sort of environment does the Real Programmer function best in? This is
an important question for the manager 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 optimal environment.

The typical Real Programmer lives in front of a computer terminal.
Surrounding this terminal are the listings of every program he has ever
worked on. These are piled in roughly chronological order on every flat
surface in the office. You will also find half-dozen or so partly filled cups
of cold coffee. Occasionally, there will be cigarette buns floating in the
coffee. In some cases, the cups will contain Orange Crush. And, unless he is
very good, there will be copies of the OS JCL manual and the Principles of
Operation open to some particulary interesting pages. Taped to the wall is a
line-printer Snoopy calendar for the year 1969. Strewn about the floor there
will be several wrappers for peanut butter-filled cheese bars (the type that
are made stale at the bakery so they can't get any worse while waiting in the
vending machine). Finally, in the top left-hand desk drawer, underneath the
box of Oreos, is a flowcharting template, left there by the previous
occupant. Real Programmers write programs, not documentation, which is left
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 callenging by working on some small
but interesting part of the problem for the first nine weeks. Then he
finishes the task in the last week, in two or three 50-hour marathons. This
not only impresses his manager, but creates a convenient excuse for not doing
the documentation. In general: no Real Programmer works 9 to 5, except those
on the night shift. Real Programmers don't wear neckties. Real Programmers
don't wear high-heeled shoes. Real Programmers arrive at work in time for
lunch. A Real Programmer may or may not know his spouse'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 often open at 3 a.m., so they must
survive on Twinkies and coffee.

Looking to the future, some Real Programmers are concerned that the latest
generation of programmers are not 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. Today's college graduates 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 think it's safe to report that the future is bright for
Real Programmers. Neither OS/370 nor FORTRAN shows any signs of dying out,
despite the efforts of Pascal programmers. Even more subtle tricks, like
adding structured coding constructs to FORTRAN, have failed. Oh sure, some
computer vendors have come up with FORTRAN77 compilers, but every one of them
has a way of converting itself back into a FORTRAN66 compiler at the drop of
an option card - to compile DO loops as God intended.

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. It has two different and subtly incompatible user interfaces, an
arcane and complicated teletype driver, and virtual memory. If you ignore the
facts 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
(10? eight?) characters long, and the added bonus for the Pointer data type
is thrown in. That's 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
leaving places like Stanford and MIT 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!