THE LESSER-KNOWN PROGRAMMING LANGUAGES #18: C- This language was named for the grade received by its creator when he submitted it as a class project in a graduate programming class. C- is best described as a "low-level" programming language. In fact, the language generally requires more C- statements than machine-code statements to execute a given task. In this respect, it is very similar to COBOL. ******** Putt's Law: Technology is dominated by two types of people: Those who understand what they do not manage. Those who manage what they do not understand. ******** New systems generate new problems. ******** ADA, n.: Something you need only know the name of to be an Expert in Computing. Useful in sentences like, "We had better develop an ADA awareness." ******** Hoare's Law of Large Problems: Inside every large problem is a small problem struggling to get out. ******** Rattling around the back of my head is a disturbing image of something I saw at the airport ... Now I'm remembering, those giant piles of computer magazines right next to "People" and "Time" in the airport store. Does it bother anyone else that half the world is being told all of our hard-won secrets of computer technology? Remember how all the lawyers cried foul when "How to Avoid Probate" was published? Are they taking no-fault insurance lying down? No way! But at the current rate it won't be long before there are stacks of the "Transactions on Information Theory" at the A&P checkout counters. Who's going to be impressed with us electrical engineers then? Are we, as the saying goes, giving away the store? -- Robert W. Lucky, IEEE President ******** In seeking the unattainable, simplicity only gets in the way. -- Epigrams in Programming, ACM SIGPLAN Sept. 1982 ******** Non-sequiturs make me eat lampshades. ******** Consultants are mystical people who ask a company for a number and then give it back to them. ******** Equal bytes for women. ******** The nice thing about standards is that there are so many of them to choose from. -- Andrew S. Tanenbaum ******** SHIFT TO THE LEFT! SHIFT TO THE RIGHT! POP UP, PUSH DOWN, BYTE, BYTE, BYTE! ******** Lubarsky's Law of Cybernetic Entomology: There's always one more bug. ******** Another Glitch in the Call ------- ------ -- --- ---- (Sung to the tune of a recent Pink Floyd song.) We don't need no indirection We don't need no flow control No data typing or declarations Did you leave the lists alone? Hey! Hacker! Leave those lists alone! Chorus: All in all, it's just a pure-LISP function call. All in all, it's just a pure-LISP function call.