Humor: Cargo Cult Programming

Jason Stephenson jason at sigio.com
Fri Nov 15 08:53:05 EST 2002


bscott at ntisys.com wrote:
>   Geez.  *Light* has some latency issues, too.  I spent years at 2400 baud
> on dialup systems where colored text was considered an advanced feature.  
> And I'm just a young'un.  There are people on the list who remember when
> teletypes really did *type*.

I'm only 32 (well next Wednesday, anyway) and I've actually worked on a 
program that sent data over a 2400 baud connection directly to a 
teletype machine. That was in 1997 and 1998 or so. I didn't write the 
original, but became responsible for maintenance for a brief time. I had 
to learn all the "shift codes" to make it print bold and so on. Don't 
say that us young'uns don't know anything, but I guess by modern 
programming hiring practices, I'm old.

> 
>   You people today.  You don't know how good you've got it.  ;-)
> 

My first 'net connection was over a 2400 baud modem to a Unix server. I 
used that modem for 3 years before I could afford a 14400 modem. I used 
that for several years before getting ADSL at 768 Kbps / 128 Kbps. 
Today, I'm on a dedicated SDSL line at 144 Kbps both ways, and sometimes 
it feels slow.

I know how good I've got it. I could use a *slow* line again if I had 
to, but once you've used the Condor who wants to go back to a Goonie 
Bird? ;-)




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