Real Programmers Don't Use Pascal: Difference between revisions

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{{short description|1983 essay about programming}}

"'''Real Programmer'''" syndrome is the opposite extreme to the [[impostor syndrome]].<ref name="Business_insider">{{cite web |url=http://www.businessinsider.com/syndromes-drive-coders-crazy-2014-3 |title= The Stress Of Being A Computer Programmer Is Literally Driving Many Of Them Crazy| author = Julie Bort |date= March 2014 |publisher= [[Business Insider]] |accessdate=2016-12-30 |deadurl= no}}</ref> The syndrome is characterised by set of specific beliefs and behaviours.

"'''Real Programmers Don't Use Pascal'''"<ref name=ryerson>{{cite web

|url = http://www.ee.ryerson.ca/~elf/hack/realmen.html

{{Wikipedia books |title = Real Programmers Don't Use Pascal}}

|author = Post, Ed

|date = July 1983

|archiveurl = https://web.archive.org/web/20120206010243/http://www.ee.ryerson.ca/~elf/hack/realmen.html

|archivedate = 2012-02-06

|url-status = live

}}</ref> (a parody of the bestselling 1982 tongue-in-cheek book on stereotypes about masculinity ''[[Real Men Don't Eat Quiche]]'') is an essay about [[computer programming]] written by Ed Post of [[Tektronix, Inc.]],<ref>[https://books.google.com/books?id=_S4EAAAAMBAJ&pg=PA34 ''Note:'' Graphic Software Systems was a 1981 spin-off of Tektronix]</ref> and published in July 1983 as a reader's contribution in ''[[Datamation]]''.<ref group="lower-alpha">Volume 29 number 7</ref><ref>{{Cite book |url=https://archive.org/details/bitsavers_datamation_52582203/page/n245/mode/2up |title=Datamation |date=July 1983 |publisher=Technical Publishing |volume=29 |___location=United States |pages=263-265 |language=en}}</ref>

==BehaviorsHistory==

Widely circulated on [[Usenet]] in its day, and well known in the computer software industry,<ref name=Raymond>{{cite web

Behaviors that are part of the syndrome include working for no extra monetary compensation up to 12-hour days/six days a week for months or years on end, damaging some programmers' health as a result of the strain.<ref name="Business_insider"/>

| url = http://www.th-soft.com/zzJargon/R.htm#Real_Programmer

| title = Real Programmer

| work = The New Hacker's Dictionary

| date = July 27, 1993

| editor = Eric S. Raymond| accessdate = 2008-03-28

}}</ref> the article compares and contrasts ''real programmers'', who use punch cards and write programs in [[FORTRAN]] or [[assembly language]], with modern-day "quiche eaters" who use programming languages such as [[Pascal (programming language)|Pascal]] which support [[structured programming]] and impose restrictions meant to prevent or minimize common [[software bug|bug]]s due to inadvertent programming logic errors. Also mentioned are feats such as [[Seymour Cray]], the inventor of the [[Cray-1]] supercomputer, using manual control switches to load the first operating system for the [[CDC 7600]] without notes.

The next year [[Ed Nather]]’s ''[[The Story of Mel]]'', also known as ''The realest programmer of all'', extended the theme. Immortalized in the piece is Mel Kaye of the [[Royal McBee]] Computer Corporation. As the story famously puts it, "He wrote in machine code—in 'raw, unadorned, inscrutable [[hexadecimal]] numbers. Directly.'"

==Beliefs==

The beliefs that are part of the syndrome include the belief in fetishized social status of being "real programmer" that was the theme of ''The Story of Mel'' about [[Mel Kaye]] of the [[Royal McBee]] Computer Corporation, who, as the story puts it, "wrote in machine code—in 'raw, unadorned, inscrutable [[hexadecimal]] numbers. Directly.'". Historically they were described by a 1983 essay "'''Real Programmers Don't Use Pascal'''" (a parody of the bestselling 1982 tongue-in-cheek book on stereotypes about masculinity ''[[Real Men Don't Eat Quiche]]'') by Ed Post<ref name=ryerson>{{cite web |url=http://www.ee.ryerson.ca/~elf/hack/realmen.html |title= Real Programmers Don't Use Pascal| author = Post, Ed |date= July 1983 |publisher= [[Datamation]] |archiveurl= http://www.webcitation.org/659yh1oSh |archivedate=2012-02-02 |deadurl= no}} ''"...&nbsp;Real Programmers use FORTRAN. Quiche Eaters use PASCAL&nbsp;..."''</ref> of [[Tektronix, Inc.]],<ref>[https://books.google.com/books?id=_S4EAAAAMBAJ&pg=PA34 ''Note:'' Graphic Software Systems was a 1981 spin-off of Tektronix]</ref> published as a [[letter to the editor]] in ''[[Datamation]]''<ref>Volume 29 number 7</ref>, and later widely circulated on [[Usenet]]<ref name=Raymond>{{cite web| url=http://www.th-soft.com/zzJargon/R.htm#Real_Programmer |title=Real Programmer | work=The New Hacker's Dictionary |date=July 27, 1993 |author=Eric S. Raymond, editor |accessdate= 2008-03-28}}</ref>, defining ''real programmer'' as someone who refuses [[structured programming]] and tools of the day in favour of harder, but more direct solutions—[[low-level programming language|closer to the hardware]].<ref name=Raymond/>

Since then, the [[computer jargon|computer folklore]] term ''Real Programmer'' has come to describe the archetypical "hardcore" programmer who eschews the modern languages and tools of the day in favour of more direct and efficient (for the machine, decidedly not for the programmer) solutions—[[low-level programming language|closer to the hardware]].<ref name=Raymond/> The term is used in many subsequent articles,<ref>{{cite journal

The next year [[Ed Nather]]’s ''[[The Story of Mel]]'', also known as ''The realest programmer of all'', extended the theme, as have many subsequent articles,<ref>{{cite journal

| url = http://csdl2.computer.org/persagen/DLAbsToc.jsp?resourcePath=/dl/mags/so/&toc=comp/mags/so/1995/06/s6toc.xml&DOI=10.1109/52.469755

| author = Ian Gorton

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| accessdate = 2008-03-28

| doi = 10.1109/52.469755

| url-access = subscription

}}</ref><ref>{{cite web

| url = http://www.cs.utah.edu/~elb/folklore/afs-paper.ps

| title = The Heroic Hacker: Legends of the Computer Age

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| archiveurl = https://web.archive.org/web/20080419225755/http://www.suslik.org/Humour/Computer/Langs/real_prog2.html

| archivedate = 2008-04-19

}}</ref> [[webcomic]]s<ref>[http://xkcd.com/378/ REAL programmers] xkcd.com</ref> and in-jokes&mdash;withalthough the alleged defining features of a "Real Programmer" differingdiffer with time and place.

==See also==

*{{§l|Pascal (programming language)|Early criticism}}

{{Wikipedia books|Real Programmers Don't Use Pascal}}

*[[Commodity fetishism#Social prestige|Social prestige as cultural fetishism]]

==References==

{{reflist}}

== Notes ==

{{reflist|group=lower-alpha}}

==External links==

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[[Category:Pascal (programming language)]]

[[Category:1983 essays]]

[[Category:Parodies1983 in computing]]

[[Category:Parodies of literature]]

[[Category:Computer humour]]