Re: 6502 Programming Is Not Interested?

[Chris Morse <chris@cosmicwolf.com>]

On Sun, 10 Aug 2003 04:32:42 GMT, "desiv" <desiv@attbi.com> wrote:

>Now, there can be art in programming today.  There are some programmers who
>are that good, and I'm sure you are one of those..  But any one who programs
>or works with programmers knows that there are a LOT (as in huge percentage)
>of bad point-and-click programmers out there.  People who learn 1 tool (VB
>for instance) and drag and drop code.

I have to admit this too Dave.  I do fully agree that the "art" of
programming is not dead.  The way I see it, back in the days of the
Apple II, a "real" program had to be developed by pretty much "real"
programmers.  Almost all commercial software was written in assembly,
which pretty much forced the programmer to have a decent idea of what
he was doing.

>Of course, there were bad programmers "back-in-the-day", but there's a much
>higher percentage now.  Why?  It's easier to be a bad programmer now.
>Better tools, excess RAM and drive space.  It's very easy in todays world to
>write bad sloppy bloated code and get away with it...

Yes, it was harder to be a "bad" programmer before, if you were doing
it for a living and writing commercial software.  Commercial
applications were almost NEVER written in BASIC. 

I think, also, back in those days 20 years ago there were A LOT fewer
professional programmers than there are today.  Those few that did
program professionally 20 years ago most likely were keen and in tune
with their machines.  

Today, I am surprised when I discover how many placed employ
programmers who couldn't program out of a wet paper bag.  Visual Basic
is all they know and even then it's sloppy and inefficient.

But there are a lot of programmers out there that are the complete
opposite, too.  It's more of a mix than it was before; today it's
easier to be sloppy and get away with it.

// CHRIS