Jean-David Beyer wrote:
John wrote:
Jean-David Beyer wrote:

It was about that time that the BASIC OS-Language came out.
Misunderstanding. BASIC was never used as an operating system language.

We may be quibbling here. Basic was initial interface anyone got when
logging into the Dartmouth Time Sharing System and it was also the one they
programmed in. So from the user's viewpoint, it was both the operating
system and the programming language.

Yes, RSTS was the same way.

Another way of looking at your statement would be if you thought I meant a
language in which to write operating systems. I think it would be possible
to do it in BASIC, but I sure would not want to try it. I know ALGOL 60
compilers were written in ALGOL 60, even though it was by no means ideal to
do so.

Indeed, the ability of a language to compile itself is of questionable
value. It all compiles down to machine code of varying efficiency.

My favorite comments I saw in code included:

1.) Trickey

after some really obscure code. This was the only comment and it was not
funny to the person who had to maintain it.

and

2.) They made me do it.

After some stupid code; pretty clearly something the programmer did not want
to write, but a micromanaging supervisor forced it in.

Clever is dangerous. In class I wrote a one-line function that had my c
instructor wowed. It took him a while to figure out what it did, then he
said it was very clever. He even later offered me a job as a c
programmer. (brrr, a close call!)

I looked at the code ten years later and it was almost opaque to me.
When it becomes easier to understand the compiler-generated assembler of
the same, then you gotta know something is Way Bad(tm) about the higher
level code.

OB DARKROOM: Sometimes I feel the way about Photoshop outcomes.