Linux is KING - Couldn't be hacked - Mac, Vista went down in flames

[Tim]

Tim:
>> Back when I were a lad, we didn't use no debugger.  We'd print the code,
>> and attack the printout with pencils out to mark all the bugs and
>> corrections, then type the changes back in.

Manuel Aróstegui:
> No kidding? 
> 
> That's awesome!!!

I hate to sound "not awesome,"  ;-)  but it's not as fantastic as you
might think.

When you *invent* a program, you're supposed to work out how it should
work and what it should do, first.  If you know what you're doing, you
get it right during this stage.  Then you enter your code into the
computer, and it just works.  (Then came Windows, with masses of its own
bugs, and *you* couldn't do a damn thing about them.)

Most bugs were down to making mistakes when entering your data, and
printing the code was the easiest way to check it all.  I can certainly
scan more across long sheets of paper than the keyhole view of just part
of it you get through a VDU, and some have limited scrolling features,
or far too rapid scrolling, so it's quicker and easier to look for bugs
on paper (if you know what you're looking for).  And you'll usually find
several, so that speeds debugging up, too.

What's more of a bastard to resolve is when you've made fundamental
errors in how to code your program (it does what you tell it to do, but
you've told it to do something stupid).

Tim, still waiting for one of the old codgers to say, "You young
whippersnappers have it easy, when we wanted to program we had to oil
the gears and stoke the engine..."

-- 
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