What sort of environment does the Real Programmer function best in? This is an important question for the managers 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 an environment where he can get his work done.
The typical Real Programmer lives in front of a computer terminal. Surrounding this terminal are:
Listings of all programs the Real Programmer has ever worked on, piled in roughly chronological order on every flat surface in the office.
Some half-dozen or so partly filled cups of cold coffee. Occasionally, there will be cigarette butts floating in the coffee. In some cases, the cups will contain Orange Crush.
Unless he is very good, there will be copies of the OS JCL manual and the Principles of Operation open to some particularly interesting pages.
Taped to the wall is a line-printer Snoopy calendar for the year 1969.
Strewn about the floor are several wrappers for peanut butter filled cheese bars-- the type that are made pre-stale at the bakery so they can't get any worse while waiting in the vending machine.
Hiding in the top left-hand drawer of the desk is a stash of double-stuff Oreos for special occasions.
Underneath the Oreos is a flow-charting template, left there by the previous occupant of the office. (Real Programmers write programs, not documentation. Leave that to the maintenence 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 challenging by working on some small but interesting part of the problem for the first nine weeks, then finishing the rest in the last week, in two or three 50-hour marathons. This not only impresses the hell out of his manager, who was despairing of ever getting the project done on time, but creates a convenient excuse for not doing the documentation. In general:
No Real Programmer works 9 to 5. (Unless it's the ones at night.)
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 might or might not know his wife'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 open at three in the morning. Real Programmers survive on Twinkies and coffee.
What of the future? It is a matter of some concern to Real Programmers that the latest generation of computer programmers are not being 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. College graduates these days 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 can only report that the future is bright for Real Programmers everywhere. Neither OS/370 nor Fortran show any signs of dying out, despite all the efforts of Pas- cal programmers the world over. Even more subtle tricks, like adding structured coding constructs to Fortran, have failed. Oh sure, some computer vendors have come out with Fortran 77 compilers, but every one of them has a way of converting itself back into a Fortran 66 compiler at the drop of an option card-- to compile DO loops like God meant them to be.
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-- two different and subtly incompatible user interfaces, an arcane and complicated teletype driver, virtual memory. If you ignore the fact 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 (ten? eight?) characters long, and the added bonus of the Pointer data type is thrown in-- 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 ([7] and [8]) 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!
References:
[1] Feirstein, B., "Real Men don't Eat Quiche", New York, Pocket Books, 1982.
[2] Wirth, N., "Algorithms + Data Structures = Programs", Prentice Hall, 1976.
[3] Ilson, R., "Recent Research in Text Processing", IEEE Trans. Prof. Commun., Vol. PC-23, No. 4, Dec. 4, 1980.
[4] Finseth, C., "Theory and Practice of Text Editors - or - a Cookbook for an EMACS", B.S. Thesis, MIT/LCS/TM-165, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, May 1980.
[5] Weinberg, G., "The Psychology of Computer Programming", New York, Van Nostrand Reinhold, 1971, p. 110.
[6] Dijkstra, E., "On the GREEN language submitted to the DoD", Sigplan notices, Vol. 3, No. 10, Oct 1978.
[7] Rose, Frank, "Joy of Hacking", Science 82, Vol. 3, No. 9, Nov 82, pp. 58-66.
[8] "The Hacker Papers", Psychology Today, August 1980.
ACKNOWLEGEMENT
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I would like to thank Jan E., Dave S., Rich G., Rich E. for their help in characterizing the Real Programmer, Heather B. for the illustration, Kathy E. for putting up with it, and atd!avsdS:mark for the initial inspiration.