GnarfGnarf

5 ms·

1.
by GnarfGnarf 17d ago
The company started out with RPG. There was no COBOL compiler. They had to start processing health claims on paper tape, which could only be read with Assembler. They hired me to learn & write Assembler. We converted the master file upd
2.
by GnarfGnarf 20d ago
The Assembler (Basic Assembler Language or BAL) was for the Univac 9300 and 9400, clones of the IBM 360. Univac originally made and sold the 1100 series, with the Exec 8 O/S. The 1100 was a 36-bit machine, very successful in airline re
3.
by GnarfGnarf 21d ago
I was a Systems Analyst. I helped salesmen prepare proposals, I did benchmarks and conversions, and customer training. Univac couldn't afford to put a computer in every branch, so I had less access and opportunity to program, than our
4.
by GnarfGnarf 27d ago
I should have loved Latin. I should have loved Greek.
5.
by GnarfGnarf 1mo ago
I worked for Sperry Univac 1974/78. Great bunch of people. It’s a shame their resources were diluted over so many different operating systems.
6.
by GnarfGnarf 3mo ago
What, you rewrote std::deque? Whew!
7.
by GnarfGnarf 5mo ago
It’s heartbreaking to think of what treasures were lost when they were using mummies as locomotive fuel in the 19th century.
8.
by GnarfGnarf 6mo ago
Perhaps, but municipal water runs by gravity whereas your well pump doesn’t operate during a power failure.
9.
by GnarfGnarf 6mo ago
SBC = Single Board Computing Betriebsblind
10.
by GnarfGnarf 8mo ago
Agree. I love UDLs, use them in my code for improved legibility. I hadn’t realized how badly you can screw up if you don’t define all the operators correctly.
11.
by GnarfGnarf 8mo ago
I thought User-Defined Literals were a great idea until I saw all the pitfalls listed in the Google style document. Dangerous indeed.
12.
by GnarfGnarf 8mo ago
The UK was not part of the Euro economy.
13.
by GnarfGnarf 9mo ago
I'm a Windows/macOS developer, but I strongly feel that all national governments need to convert to Linux, for strategic sovereignty. (My customer demographic is seniors & casual users).
14.
by GnarfGnarf 9mo ago
I'm a Windows/macOS developer, but I strongly feel that all national governments need to convert to Linux, for strategic sovereignty. I'm sure Microsoft, under orders from the U.S. government, could disable all computers in a
15.
by GnarfGnarf 11mo ago
Qt has many good features, but it is not as robust as Visual Studio. It can lock up while debugging. <F2> will take you to the extern in the same module, not the actual definition. Variable expansion during debugging is slow. You can’
16.
by GnarfGnarf 1y ago
Totally describes my experience, since 1965.
17.
by GnarfGnarf 1y ago
I appreciate how lower-case ‘L’, digit ‘1’ and upper-case ‘I’ are differentiated. Also alpha ‘O’ and zero.
18.
by GnarfGnarf 1y ago
CI = Continuous Integration
19.
by GnarfGnarf 1y ago
There are three things a nation needs to accept about universal health care: (1) It’s expensive (2) Everybody has to pay (3) The government’s gotta run it
20.
by GnarfGnarf 1y ago
The WiX installer is a byzantine incomprehensible mess. Its only appeal was that it was free. If I have to pay, I'd rather have a commercial product that is supported and easier to use. Rob Mensching was supposed to monetize WiX by off
21.
by GnarfGnarf 1y ago
What makes the author think we are entitled to free search? How much would you pay for ad-free search? The “golden era” of free search was just setting us up for the plucking.
22.
by GnarfGnarf 1y ago
Would this also apply to a vendor’s encrypted file format?
23.
by GnarfGnarf 1y ago
There would be a broader area affected.
24.
by GnarfGnarf 1y ago
Yeah, SPF, DKIM and DMARC are incomprehensible. The only people with the time, motivation and expertise to understand and apply them, are professional spammers. Most of the legitimate email I get, fail one or more of these tests. If I recal
25.
by GnarfGnarf 2y ago
I write a genealogy app (family history). Recursion is the foundation of the code, and permeates everywhere. The call stack can go 200 deep or more (~4,000 yrs). The code has been successfully running on millions of desktops for thirty year
26.
by GnarfGnarf 2y ago
It is possible to store three decimal digits as three groups of four bits, in every 12-row column. You can insert and delete when duplicating cards, by pressing with your fingers on the source or target card while typing on the keyboard.
27.
by GnarfGnarf 2y ago
This is about the root of humanity’s problem: the inability to avoid misusing knowledge and technology. All our inventions are but improved means to an unimproved end (Thoreau)
28.
by GnarfGnarf 2y ago
The car should have an option to stop, let the passenger & baggage out, then resume its search for a parking spot. Or leave altogether since it no longer needs to be in the airport parking lot. Still, typical of poorly designed software
29.
by GnarfGnarf 2y ago
There were real bugs and there was a real possibility of major disruption. We were spared because of mobilization of resources and the dedication of the programmers involved.
30.
by GnarfGnarf 2y ago
I did this for a while. I found a roll of heavy-duty aluminum foil (not quite pie-plate thick), and scavenged some old dot-matrix printers. Removing the ribbon, I printed text and low-res images on the foil. I inserted a roll containing my

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