🚀 go-pugleaf

cedman@golem.ps.uci.edu (Carl Edman) writes:
>In article <ggk.658699652@tirith.UUCP> ggk@tirith.UUCP (Gregory Kritsch) writes:

>   cedman@golem.ps.uci.edu (Carl Edman) writes:
>   >In article <90318.162021DXB132@psuvm.psu.edu> DXB132@psuvm.psu.edu writes:

>   So, whats your point?  It probably took 2 minutes to do the cr-lf
>   program, and 5 for the clock.  And if they don't work, it'll take
>   another 2 minutes to find out why not.

>What I am complaining about ?
>[raving-prophet-of-the-doom-of-computerdom-and-the-decadence-of-
> -the-young-programmers-mode on ]

Nice attitude.  Unfortunately, I'm 18 years old, and just got a little
offended...  I hate being stereotyped.

>But what happens ? Do new, imaginative mind-blowing programs appear at
>every turn ?

If you look hard enough, you'll notice some mind-blowing stuff out
there.  I remember two years ago talking to someone about DTP, and
watching their sudden realization that DTP didn't exist when they bought
their A2000.

Imagine what the ms-dos dudes are thinking at this moment of multi-media
(Amigatroids have had it for a while, so we're less excited).

Remember a program called Hypercard from Apple a few years ago?  Forget
that, remember the idea of a window even more years ago?

I know, a few small examples, but still, it is happening.  Computers
today are used for a lot of things that were unimagined when I got into
computers (er, I guess it all began 7 years ago with a TRS-80 CoCo). 
You expect something that will boggle your mind, whereas almost every
software developer out there is trying to make their software as simple
and unintimidating to use as possible.

Think sometime about the complexity of a file requester, compared to the
list of files you get under WP on ms-dos.

>44 kHz and 1024x640 graphics in 16 Mcolors.  Of course,not drawn
>graphics or composed sounds. No, digitized sounds and graphics. Maybe
>with a few hours of programming you could write a program which
>generates the same sounds in a few kBytes. But , who cares ? Put it in
>the digitizer and generate a Mbyte sample, it is so much easier.

I dunno, I always imagined that theres a neato half way point.  Ie to do
sound, you digitize instruments and then have code to vary the volume,
pitch, and so on.  Of course, it gets stupidly complicated when you try
for more than four voices.

>I am using large machines with lots of memory today, too. But I learned
>to program on a computer with 1 kByte of memory and if you used more
>than half of it, the screen was turned of as the screen memory was used
>for the program. Maybe that shows. I hope it does.

I learned on a machine with 16 kb, which was later upgraded to 32 kb.  I
couldn't believe all the neat things I could do with 32 kb.  Now, I have
512 kb, and I'm looking to upgrade because I don't have enough memory?

Programs have become larger.  Fundamental reason #1: the machine op code
doubled in size a few years ago (from 8 bits to 16).  Reason #2: The
user has given up on cryptic commands.  Reason #3: The programmer
started to realize there was an actual user, not just the program.

I hope this isn't too philosophical for this newsgroup...

>        Carl "When you have 'cat', who needs compilers ?" Edman
--
  Gregory Kritsch                          | University of Waterloo
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