Groups | Search | Server Info | Keyboard shortcuts | Login | Register [http] [https] [nntp] [nntps]


Groups > comp.lang.forth > #51957

Re: Charles Moore said you can replace all crap with .1% the code

From Paul Rubin <no.email@nospam.invalid>
Newsgroups comp.lang.forth
Subject Re: Charles Moore said you can replace all crap with .1% the code
Date 2016-10-17 17:02 -0700
Organization A noiseless patient Spider
Message-ID <87pomypls2.fsf@nightsong.com> (permalink)
References <9feed3da-dfa7-448a-a42a-fbbf5ced3f43@googlegroups.com> <20161017191434.5ed224af@_>

Show all headers | View raw


Rod Pemberton <NeedNotReplyHere@xrsevnneqk.cem> writes:
> Have you placed his statement into it's appropriate historical
> context?  What year was this statement made?  On an ancient 8-bit
> micro-computer without memory and without much hardware to program,
> when using threaded-code, this might've once been a realistic
> statement,...  With plenty of hardware to program in modern computers
> and the very large or complex software packages of today, I don't view
> his comment as a realistic statement anymore.

I took it as being about today's software (or 5 years ago or whenever he
gave that talk).  And I interpreted it as meaning that given a
high-level description of the problem, he can deliver a solution 1% of
the size of today's software.

An example might be word processing: many perfectly good word processors
ran on 32 kilobyte CP/M systems, Apple II's, etc.  Microsoft Word today
is at least 1000x bigger.  Yes it has a lot more crap in it, but that
stuff reaches outside the essence of the problem.

Myself, I ported Col. G. L. Sicherman's "roff" program to Turbo C and
used it for many years on a 4.77 mhz Toshiba laptop, even in the
post-Unix era:

http://www.cise.ufl.edu/class/cop4600/minix/src/commands/simple/roff.c

Back to comp.lang.forth | Previous | Next — Previous in thread | Next in thread | Find similar | Unroll thread


Thread

Charles Moore said you can replace all crap with .1% the code polymorph self <jackvanc3@gmail.com> - 2016-10-17 06:50 -0700
  Re: Charles Moore said you can replace all crap with .1% the code Rod Pemberton <NeedNotReplyHere@xrsevnneqk.cem> - 2016-10-17 19:14 -0400
    Re: Charles Moore said you can replace all crap with .1% the code Paul Rubin <no.email@nospam.invalid> - 2016-10-17 17:02 -0700
      Re: Charles Moore said you can replace all crap with .1% the code polymorph self <jackvanc3@gmail.com> - 2016-10-17 21:42 -0700
    Re: Charles Moore said you can replace all crap with .1% the code polymorph self <jackvanc3@gmail.com> - 2016-10-17 21:42 -0700

csiph-web