The evolution of developer experience in the 20th century (2020)

(wanderingstan.com)

32 points | by mooreds 446 days ago

4 comments

  • bitwize 445 days ago
    About Grace Hopper's moth: the notes in her logbook say "First case of actual bug being found." Meaning that the term "bug" meaning an error or glitch was in common use even when she found the moth.

    "Bugs on the line" was a term used to refer to transmission errors, often due to unauthorized operators, in the telegraph days.

  • 082349872349872 445 days ago
    We're all familiar with Brooks' injunction regarding flowcharts and tables, but I've recently found the same sentiment expressed at the dawn of the computer age:

    Booth & Britten, "General Considerations in the Design of an All Purpose Electronic Digital Computer." (1947) p5 https://albert.ias.edu/bitstream/handle/20.500.12111/7942/Bo...

    > ...once the form of the high speed memory has been decided, most of the other components of an electronic computer become semi-invariant.

    • bin_bash 445 days ago
      I know it's popular, but I bet a lot of people haven't heard the flowchart and table quote you're referencing:

      "Show me your flowchart and conceal your tables, and I shall continue to be mystified. Show me your tables, and I won't usually need your flowchart; it'll be obvious." -- Fred Brooks, The Mythical Man Month (1975)

  • gumby 445 days ago
    What a wonderful article! Normally an article like this will be a cursory discussion of a few 1990s Mac packages but this was really good.

    I joined at what the author referred to as the REPL stage, and never used cards though the two eras overlapped.