Considering migrating to Python from Visual Basic 6 for engineering applications

[Jussi Piitulainen]

Steven D'Aprano writes:

> On Mon, 22 Feb 2016 08:52 am, Jussi Piitulainen wrote:
>
>> BartC writes:
>
>>> IIRC, the first programming exercise I ever did (in 1976 using Algol
>>> 60) involved reading 3 numbers from the teletype and working out if
>>> those could form sides of a triangle.
>> 
>> That was a lousy user interface even then - an inflexible user
>> interaction without even a possibility of handling errors
>> interactively?  Command line arguments would have been better (if
>> available, that is).
>
> Jussi, I think you have an inflated expectation of what was available
> in 1976. Command line? What's that? Programs ran in batch mode, and
> 'interactive' meant that you could easily slip out one punched card,
> replace it with a different one, and run the program again.

You are probably right. I was thinking ten years off. Sorry.

But if that's how one worked a teletype, then it sounds similar to
command line arguments to me. Or to a configuration file that the
program then when run. Not the interaction-prompting interface that I
was thinking of when I called it lousy.