Re: Do have programs have poor documentation? (was ... Re: Why? -- "A Modest Proposal")

[rhkramer@gmail.com]

On Friday, December 30, 2016 06:40:31 AM Lisi Reisz wrote:
> On Friday 30 December 2016 01:37:53 Xen wrote:
> > You do realize that coding implies hammering on a keyboard too, right?
> 
> No, I do not realise that coding *implies* hammering on a keyboard.  Coding
> the lazy modern way can be done via a keyboard.  But coding itself most
> emphatically does not imply it.
> 
> I knew I was old but ...  I cannot even find a reference to coding without
> a keyboard.  I had difficulty finding a reference to anything more basic
> and nearer to the CPU than Assembler.
> 
> For the record, I (and surely at least one or two others on this list??!)
> remember coding with pin boards, sheets with squares, punched cards ...
> Taking a keyboard anywhere near a computer was a positively late addition
> to the peripherals available. ;-)  It is certainly possible to code
> without one.

Well, just to add another viewpoint (and because it was (is?) a sore point 
with me):

   * I used to program on paper (and, really, still do on those rare 
occasions)--I think out what I plan to do, even to the level of code or 
pseudocode--then I go to a machine and enter what I've written (for me, the 
first was paper tape on teletype machines, then punched cards)

   * the sore point for me was having ("cowboy") programmers work with me, 
who, imo, did more trial and error than planning--resulting in lots of errors 
and delays...

Anyway, I'm pretty much past all that now ;-)







> 
> Come to that, before the Ark we wrote without one too. ;-)
> 
> Lisi