[Chicago] Good readings on the history of computing

[Matt Bone]

It's not an article, but here's a really old book I love:
http://www.amazon.com/Interactive-Programming-Environments-David-Barstow/dp/0070038856

I think it's interesting to see how little stuff has changed with
regards to how we actually write programs. This book includes articles
from notables like Stallman and Kernighan.

I like this thread because earlier today someone sent me an article
with this quote:

"The lack of interest, the disdain for history is what makes computing
not-quite-a-field." – Alan Kay

--matt

On Tue, Sep 24, 2013 at 5:35 PM, Alex MacKay <chicagomackay at gmail.com> wrote:
> Again, the 72 is based upon concepts of the 1950's and 1960's.  A old punch
> card was 80 columns long.  The last 8 (73-80) was used for line numbering.
> If you dropped the deck of cards, you could easily put the program, data,
> back in the correct order.
>
> On Sep 24, 2013, at 5:07 PM, Andy Boyle wrote:
>
> Continuing the off-topic for a moment, for those who are unaware PEP-8 was
> recently updated to allow for longer line length:
> http://www.python.org/dev/peps/pep-0008/#maximum-line-length
>
> "Some teams strongly prefer a longer line length. For code maintained
> exclusively or primarily by a team that can reach agreement on this issue,
> it is okay to increase the nominal line length from 80 to 100 characters
> (effectively increasing the maximum length to 99 characters), provided that
> comments and docstrings are still wrapped at 72 characters."
>
>
> Andy Boyle | Chicago Tribune
> News Applications Developer
> @andymboyle | andymboyle.com
>
>
> On Tue, Sep 24, 2013 at 4:49 PM, Carl Karsten <carl at personnelware.com>
> wrote:
>>
>> On Tue, Sep 24, 2013 at 2:40 PM, Jason Wirth <wirth.jason at gmail.com>
>> wrote:
>> > Python is a newer language
>>
>> [citation needed]
>>
>> It is over 20 years old.
>>
>> granted pep 8:
>> http://www.python.org/dev/peps/pep-0008/
>> Created:05-Jul-2001
>>
>> But back to your question about why 79 chars, I think because many of
>> us (like me) use text based editors in text based environments like an
>> ssh shell that defaults to 80 chars.
>>
>> and back on topic, you may like this
>>
>> http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HCwRGHj5jOE "26 years with Erlang or
>> How I got my grey hairs"
>>
>>
>>
>> --
>> Carl K
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>
>
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