age of Python programmers

[Martin Maney]

Aahz <aahz at pythoncraft.com> wrote:
> In article <mailman.2753.1094102613.5135.python-list at python.org>,
> Andrew Durdin  <adurdin at gmail.com> wrote:
>>
>>There seem to be a lot of Pythoneers who started with BASIC -- I guess
>>that's what came with most "home computers" in those days. I started
>>at 8 with BASIC on an Amstrad CPC6128 (though I played games more than
>>I wrote programs :).

> Except that I started with BASIC on an HP1000.

Let's see.  Sometime before high school I happened across a book in the
library that caught my attention: it was about programming for business
apps, I think, because the paper machine they described worked in
decimal.  There may have been a simulator extant, but it would have
required a mainframe, so I was attracted by nothing more than the game
of figuring out how to make things happen in this imaginary assembler
code.  Of course I wasn't ever able to test any of my designs, which is
probably why I lost interest.

The first program I wrote and actually ran was written in IITRAN, a
reasonably high-level (by contemporary standards), interpreted
langauge, then key punched, catenated with a few job control cards, and
popped into the reader of the 1108 at IIT's computer center.  I learned
to hate batch turnaround delays - luckily I wouldn't have to put up
with them ever again, as I went without computer access for some years
after that.  By the time a few of us were sharing the construction and
use of Eric's IMSAI box, it was floppies that caused much of the
annoying delays.  I did finally use a BASIC dialect there, but I can't
recall its name.  It was quite nice as BASICs go, having line numbers
only if you wanted them and pretty good control structures so that you
didn't need to build everything out of gotos (and line numbers, I
guess).  Then BDS's subset C compiler came out...

Didn't mean to go on at such length - lazy Sunday morning effect, I
guess.  Anyway, the amusing observation I wanted to make before I
digressed was just that I had probably read Dijkstra's opinion (Basic
causes brain damage) before I ever had much to do with a version of the
language.  (or perhaps I misremember - that seems to come from EWD498,
which I have only, that I can find, in a collection of Dijkstra's work
published in 1982.  In "How do we tell truths that might hurt?" he says
"Is is practically imposible to teach good programming to students that
have a prior exposure to BASIC; as potential programmers they are
mutilated beyond hope of regeneration."  Yep, lazy Sunday morning...)

-- 
automation: replacing what works with something that almost works,
but which is faster and cheaper.  - attributed to Roger Needham