SCBWV

I think programming is like painting, but you have to do both sides of the canvas. It’s truly an art. You start with an idea and a blank canvas. Programming for myself, I decide the look and feel, and what functions to include. Then on the backside of the canvas, …

> This is really interesting to hear everyone's stories about programming at different times in history. > > Last weekend my Dad and I visited [Bletchley Park](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bletchley_Park) where they did a lot of the code breaking of encrypted German messages in the lead up and during World War 2. While …

I believe the US Copyright Office ruled that there has to be some human element to be eligible for copyright. They've also issues a "pre-publication" report on the legality of training AI models on copyrighted works. I agree with the required human element. I'm not sure about the training issue. …

I think most people would do the same thing all the mega-rich seem to do - mansions, planes, yachts.

It will be interesting to see where AI takes root. I know the medical field has used it to analyze images and identify concerns. What aggravates me is companies that claim AI when you know damn well, they're not using AI.

Hidden Figures? Katherine Johnson was from my State.

Amen to that! Something nostalgic about the sounds of old printers too.

I'm not seeing the value here. 1. I thought it was going to give an overview or summary of the entire thread, not just answering the code question. 2. The 3 examples were coding questions. AI answered differently than the humans. Always more than one way to accomplish the task. …

Yes! Printed manuals you can read anywhere, and perpetually owned software. Weird as it may be, I loved learning by reading the manuals. The BS of monthly subscriptions has infiltrated too many aspects of life.

At one time I had quite the collection of PC Magazine, which back in the day printed code listings. Dreadful days of typing it in. Ugh. My opinion - PC Magazine hasn't been worth a damn since the day of Bill Machrone, Charles Petzold, John Dvorak, Jim Seymour, and others.

I too though OS/2 would take off, along with the PS/2, MCA architecture, and Token Ring. I put too much faith in IBM and they weren't very good dealing with Microsoft.

In my limited time writing software for sale, it was my experience that users often asked for something that enhanced the program. What did surprise me is different ways people want to use the interface - some more keyboard oriented, more mouse. Different levels of expertise often had different expectations …

Ah... the smell of Coleman fuel and bacon. Been there many times. We tent camped as we were too poor for anything else, but I think the experience was better anyway.

It's a good enough reason for me to bail, which I did. And a good enough reason not to buy a Tesla, not to mention all the promises to owners not kept and build quality. Add in the fact that I live in the Mountain State where road grades would …

> At least you didn't let a bot near it :) > > https://www.pcmag.com/news/vibe-coding-fiasco-replite-ai-agent-goes-rogue-deletes-company-database > I miss PC Magazine of the 80's and 90's.

> Anyone who lives near where geese congregate got the "honk" reference. We have friends who once bought a house on a retention pond. One goose - not a problem. Hundreds of geese honking all day and night - major headaches. > > >Children of the night. **SHUT UP**. > …

Oh geez... hard to recall. Before Internet e-mail, our college had its own internal system. I wrote the text editor that passed files to a Pascal program written by a tech, which used Kermit to transfer files over 1200 Baud dialup modems. I wrote a DOS based menu system and …

I think any programming language that enabled the masses of novices/amateurs to write useful programs is likely underrated. There are several such languages on different platforms. Yes, they probably wrote spaghetti code that didn't adhere to any standard and would make professionals choke. But they weren't making a living coding, …

> I don't do enough programming to justify being proficient in more than one language. I'd rather be competent in one than mediocre in several so I just stick to Python/wxPython these days. I've always found APL the most interesting language to work with but Python has been the most …

I'm curious since there have been many comments on several DW posts about the dread of reading, understanding, and fixing someone else's code. Has that been the case with AI generated code? Is AI code much more understandable?

Sometimes I just have to walk away and get a fresh look later. Often, I'll still be thinking about it on a broader level, and not getting caught up on individual lines of code.

Interesting question. I don't think personal blogs or sites get much traction these days, unless your famous, and even then it's probably hosted somewhere else.

Well, I would love to golf or do something outside, but it seems like we have rain every other day. It's been a weirdly wet spring, continuing into summer.

About 30K from a custom database I wrote for a friend and never intended to sell. I don't recall how someone literally 1,000 miles away found it and wanted to buy it, which then turned into a side business.

I started teaching myself around 1983 on BASICA with a smattering of Assembly, then onto QuickBasic, Basic PDS, Visual Basic for DOS, and Visual Basic (Classic) versions 3, 4, 5, and 6. It was never my profession, although I did make a nice chunk of change on custom databases. I …

I try to, but as Jim said, some sites have rules that make it differ... which is why I keep a text file of usernames on my phone. I have a hard enough time remembering all the passwords.

Retired early as a Dean at an R1 university. For a few years I sold specialized software I wrote. Now I do as I please, when I want, if I want. ;)

2021 Dell XPS 8940 desktop, Intel i7 10700 2.9 GHz, 16 GB RAM, 1 TB SSD, 1 TB SATA HDD, NVidia GeForce GTX 1660 6 GB, Dell 27" U2720Q display I run at 3840x2160. I'm retired, so I didn't replace my laptop when it suddenly died.

Oh Lord... 17 years ago... I'm sure it was from searching for programming content.

I had to laugh reading this thread AFTER reading the "Writing and speaking clearly" thread. Thanks for the chuckle.