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``Real Programmers Don't Use PASCAL'' Ed Post Tektronix, Inc. Copyright (C) 1982 Back in the good old days -- the `Golden Era' of computers, it was easy to separate the men from the boys (sometimes called ``Real Men'' and ``Quiche Eaters'' in the literature). During this period, the Real Men were the ones that understood computer programming, and the Quiche Eaters were the ones that didn't. A real computer programmer said things like `DO 10 I=1,10' and `ABEND' (they actually talked in capital letters, you understand), 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 [1] points out that Real Men don't `relate' to anything, and aren't afraid of being impersonal.) But, as usual, times change. We are faced today with a world in which little old ladies can get computers in their microwave ovens, 12-year-old kids can blow Real Men out of the water playing Asteroids and Pac-Man, and anyone can buy and even understand their very own Personal Computer. The Real Programmer is in danger of becoming extinct, of being replaced by high-school students with TRASH-80's. There is a clear need to point out the differences between the typical high-school junior Pac-Man player and a Real Programmer. If this difference is made clear, it will give these kids something to aspire to \-- a role model, a Father Figure. It will also help explain to the employers of Real Programmers why it would be a mistake to replace the Real Programmers on their staff with 12-year-old Pac-Man players (at a considerable salary savings). LANGUAGES The easiest way to tell a Real Programmer from the crowd is by the programming language he (or she) uses. Real Programmers use FORTRAN. Quiche Eaters use PASCAL. Nicklaus Wirth, the designer of PASCAL, gave a talk once at which he was asked ``How do you pronounce your name?'' He replied, ``You can either call me by name, pronouncing it `Veert', or call me by value, `Worth'.'' One can tell immediately from this comment that Nicklaus Wirth is a Quiche Eater. The only parameter passing mechanism endorsed by Real Programmers is call-by-value-return, as Implemented in the IBM370 FORTRAN-G and H compilers. Real programmers don't need all these abstract concepts to get their jobs done -- they are perfectly happy with a keypunch, a FORTRAN IV compiler, ana a beer. o Real Programmers do List Processing in FORTRAN. o Real Programmers do String Manipulation in FORTRAN. o Real Programmers do Accounting (if they do it at all) in FORTRAN. o Real Programmers do 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. STRUCTURED PROGRAMMING The academics in computer science have gotten into the `structured programming' rut over the past several years. They claim that programs are more easily understood if the programmer uses sole special language constructs and techniques. 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 pace of some obscure journal or another -- clearly not enough of an example to convince anyone. When I got out of school, I thcught 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-line prograns that WORKED. (Really!) Then I got out into the Real World. My first task in the Real World was to read and understand a 2O0,OO0-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 quick observations on Real Programmers and Structured Programming: o Real Programmers aren't afraid to use GOTO's. o Real Programmers can write five-page-long DO loops without getting confused. o Real Programmers like Arithmetic IF statements -- they make the code more Interesting. o
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