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View Full Version : "Goodbye, world!" ... dmr has apparently passed on earlier in the week.


n6hcm
10-13-2011, 06:33 AM
so many concepts that are key to computing as we know it simply wouldn't exist without dmr.

for those who don't know: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dennis_Ritchie
KC2UGV
10-13-2011, 07:27 AM
It's a sad day for me. I'm amazed at how many developers I've spoke with since reading this have no idea who he is...
KJ3N
10-13-2011, 08:28 AM
so many concepts that are key to computing as we know it simply wouldn't exist without dmr.

Dead Man Radio? :-?

(yes, I'm being a smartass)
WØTKX
10-13-2011, 09:58 AM
Sigh. The R of K&R is gone.

Thanks for the excellent writing, that helped me learn enough Pascal to be dangerous.
n2ize
10-13-2011, 10:34 AM
It's a sad day for me. I'm amazed at how many developers I've spoke with since reading this have no idea who he is...

Many modern day developers have nary a clue about these sorts of things.
W4GPL
10-13-2011, 10:40 AM
Many modern day developers have nary a clue about these sorts of things.There's a growing memorial in the center of my office.. all developers under the age of 40, I might add.. so.. piss off with such ridiculous statements.
n2ize
10-13-2011, 10:44 AM
There's a growing memorial in the center of my office.. all developers under the age of 40, I might add.. so.. piss off with such ridiculous statements.

Maybe in your establishment they do. But I have met many developers who haven't a clue as to how many of the tools they work with came to be. And it seems I am not entirely alone in that experience.
WØTKX
10-13-2011, 10:45 AM
I still have a couple of the books. Though dense, they are excellent. Would think they would still apply.

Pascal got me out of thinking in "spaghetti code". That language was designed for teaching and learning, no?
n2ize
10-13-2011, 04:47 PM
I still have a couple of the books. Though dense, they are excellent. Would think they would still apply.

Pascal got me out of thinking in "spaghetti code". That language was designed for teaching and learning, no?

I believe it was designed to teach "structured" "procedural programming". We used Pascal way back as part of a "Intro to Computing and Algorithms" course. But I have all but forgotten how to use it. I haven't it in well over a decade. I would need to re-learn it. Other than as a learning/teaching tool I never found it too useful for my needs. C and C++ came in as more useful, along with Lisp, Perl, Python, Unix Shell, Asymptote (vector graphics with C-like syntax), Matlab, etc.
NQ6U
10-13-2011, 05:20 PM
Never could quite wrap my head around OO languages but, of course, I'm not a real programmer either.
n2ize
10-13-2011, 06:48 PM
Never could quite wrap my head around OO languages but, of course, I'm not a real programmer either.

OOP is not hard to learn. Most of the time for my present purposes it is overkill. Actually I have never met a programming language that is all that hard to learn. The real "harder part" and skilled part lies in the ability to design algorithms that can not only solve a given problem or a set of problems but... solve them with maximum efficiency. Sure, its not hard to learn to code in any given language but, given a complex or abstract problem what is the solution and, can we describe an algorithm for its solution and, if we can, how can we make the solution as efficient as possible. I spent many days/years thinking about these sorts of things, sometimes with success, sometimes with modest success and, sometimes with failure or compromise.

If you want to learn to code in OOP it might be a good idea on focusing on a language that forces you to use OOP.