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Groups > comp.lang.misc > #1016

Re: Learning to code by reading code

From Nomen Nescio <nobody@dizum.com>
Newsgroups comp.lang.misc, comp.lang.c++
Subject Re: Learning to code by reading code
References <ji2hrq$9h8$1@speranza.aioe.org>
Message-ID <8750f65b785c5d91c52e26dd628986d1@dizum.com> (permalink)
Date 2012-02-22 13:47 +0100
Organization mail2news@dizum.com

Cross-posted to 2 groups.

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"Rod Pemberton" <do_not_have@noavailemail.cmm> wrote:

> "Nomen Nescio" <nobody@dizum.com> wrote in message
> news:6b1b5349ea595142c8ad34fe494793ba@dizum.com...
> > "Rod Pemberton" <do_not_have@noavailemail.cmm> wrote:
> >
> > > The first inherent problem with that argument is that microprocessors
> > > have standardized on a basic computing architecture.  Nearly all
> > > computing platforms today use that architecture either because
> > > they are microprocessor based or because they use the same
> > > hardware, e.g., memory.  They standardized way back around
> > > 1974.  Mainframes followed suit slightly later.
> >
> > No, mainframes had the architecture in place in 1964 with System 360.
> 
> No, only *one* mainframe - singular - "had the architecture in place ..."

That's kind of a tautology since mainframe is like Kleenex or Jeep. There is
really only one...

> Also, there apparently is no support that IBM's mainframe was the genesis
> for the use of the same architecture adopted by microprocessors.

I didn't mean to suggest that, only that IBM standardized things very well
ten years early than your 1974 timeline for microprocessors....to the
extent stuff written for OS/360 is still object code compatible 48 years
later. Then 99% of the machines that came after it that were aimed at that
class of machine were either partial or total clones of the S/360 370
etc. If that isn't standardization I don't know what is. There haven't been
that many successful mainframe class machines but many many microprocessor
designs have had their day in the sun.

> The development of standardized characters sets, e.g., ASCII and extended
> ASCII, had a strong impact on standardizing 8-bit bytes for characters.

I would suggest EBCDIC had a strong effect on standardizing 8 bit bytes for
characters. I don't know what the timeline was but IBM ruled the world and
so did EBCDIC. Just depends where you are on the space time continuum. Now
everything's UNICODE so I guess the argument mutens somewhat.

> 
> > That basic platform still exists today obviously with many extensions as
> > System Z. Why do you keep trying to rewrite history?
> 
> I'm not.  Mainframes (plural) didn't standardize on IBM's System 360 design.
> Microprocessors did circa 1974.  Mainframes (plural) still hadn't done so by
> 1978.  How is that rewriting history?
> 
> > IBM solved all the problems Intel has today back in good old 1964.
> 
> What problems?

For you they might not be problems since Intel is what you know but when we
(IBM guys) look at Intel we ask stuff like 

  Do you really need to code a loop to move a string of characters or
  compare character strings longer than 4 or 8 or 16 bytes??? we haven't
  ever had to do that for strings less than 256 bytes and for 25 years or
  more not for strings of any length. To us that looks stupid.

  Do you really have only 8 "general purpose registers" and need 2 or 3 of
  those to reference the stack? We had 16 true honest to goodness gprs since
  the first series of machines. AMD fixed that with AMD64 but they didn't go
  far enough considering they had a chance. Given Intel's lack of storage to
  storage instructions we have in IBM you really need more registers to
  avoid playing hide and go seek on the stack all the time.

  Do you really have no register saving convention on Intel? Every OS and
  individual function defines what has to be on the stack and what registers
  have to be changed? We've had standard linkage for almost the whole
  history of the machine and OS and the implementations on Intel look
  broken.

There's a bunch more but I don't remember it all now.

> Well, too many systems, let me check ...  I don't have info on all of them.
> I did mean char size, but if talking address unit size then, unfortunately
> that's a "yes" ...  However, anyone a few years younger than me, can't
> answer that as a "yes".  So, shut up, you're ruining my point!  ;-)

Hehe I'm sure there are plenty of old guys around older than us. For one
thing check out comp.lang.fortran. There are some guys that know how to code
on vacuum tube computers...

The "other" Rod Pemberton

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Thread

Re: Learning to code by reading code (was: The way to read STL source code) "Rod Pemberton" <do_not_have@noavailemail.cmm> - 2012-02-18 19:00 -0500
  Re: Learning to code by reading code "MikeWhy" <boat042-nospam@yahoo.com> - 2012-02-18 22:34 -0600
  Re: Learning to code by reading code "Rod Pemberton" <do_not_have@noavailemail.cmm> - 2012-02-19 03:54 -0500
    Re: Learning to code by reading code "Dmitry A. Kazakov" <mailbox@dmitry-kazakov.de> - 2012-02-19 10:42 +0100
      Re: Learning to code by reading code "BartC" <bc@freeuk.com> - 2012-02-19 22:34 +0000
        Re: Learning to code by reading code "Dmitry A. Kazakov" <mailbox@dmitry-kazakov.de> - 2012-02-20 12:22 +0100
    Re: Learning to code by reading code "Rod Pemberton" <do_not_have@noavailemail.cmm> - 2012-02-20 03:39 -0500
  Re: Learning to code by reading code "Rod Pemberton" <do_not_have@noavailemail.cmm> - 2012-02-19 03:54 -0500
    Re: Learning to code by reading code Nick Keighley <nick_keighley_nospam@hotmail.com> - 2012-02-19 08:40 -0800
      Re: Learning to code by reading code "MikeWhy" <boat042-nospam@yahoo.com> - 2012-02-19 13:17 -0600
        Re: Learning to code by reading code Nick Keighley <nick_keighley_nospam@hotmail.com> - 2012-02-20 02:32 -0800
          Re: Learning to code by reading code "io_x" <a@b.c.invalid> - 2012-02-20 13:02 +0100
            Re: Learning to code by reading code Nick Keighley <nick_keighley_nospam@hotmail.com> - 2012-02-20 05:09 -0800
              Re: Learning to code by reading code "io_x" <a@b.c.invalid> - 2012-02-20 15:11 +0100
                Re: Learning to code by reading code Nick Keighley <nick_keighley_nospam@hotmail.com> - 2012-02-20 07:39 -0800
      Re: Learning to code by reading code "Rod Pemberton" <do_not_have@noavailemail.cmm> - 2012-02-20 04:14 -0500
        Re: Learning to code by reading code "Dmitry A. Kazakov" <mailbox@dmitry-kazakov.de> - 2012-02-20 11:14 +0100
          Re: Learning to code by reading code Nick Keighley <nick_keighley_nospam@hotmail.com> - 2012-02-20 05:13 -0800
        Re: Learning to code by reading code Nick Keighley <nick_keighley_nospam@hotmail.com> - 2012-02-20 02:49 -0800
          Re: Learning to code by reading code "io_x" <a@b.c.invalid> - 2012-02-20 13:02 +0100
            Re: Learning to code by reading code Nick Keighley <nick_keighley_nospam@hotmail.com> - 2012-02-20 05:18 -0800
              Re: Learning to code by reading code "BartC" <bc@freeuk.com> - 2012-02-20 13:53 +0000
                Re: Learning to code by reading code Nick Keighley <nick_keighley_nospam@hotmail.com> - 2012-02-21 01:32 -0800
                Re: Learning to code by reading code "io_x" <a@b.c.invalid> - 2012-02-21 16:16 +0100
                Re: Learning to code by reading code Nick Keighley <nick_keighley_nospam@hotmail.com> - 2012-02-21 08:40 -0800
          Re: Learning to code by reading code "Rod Pemberton" <do_not_have@noavailemail.cmm> - 2012-02-20 17:36 -0500
            Re: Learning to code by reading code Dombo <dombo@disposable.invalid> - 2012-02-21 00:45 +0100
              Re: Learning to code by reading code "Rod Pemberton" <do_not_have@noavailemail.cmm> - 2012-02-21 04:35 -0500
                Re: Learning to code by reading code Nick Keighley <nick_keighley_nospam@hotmail.com> - 2012-02-21 08:48 -0800
                Re: Learning to code by reading code Nick Keighley <nick_keighley_nospam@hotmail.com> - 2012-02-22 00:12 -0800
                Re: Learning to code by reading code "Rod Pemberton" <do_not_have@noavailemail.cmm> - 2012-02-22 06:12 -0500
                Re: Learning to code by reading code Nick Keighley <nick_keighley_nospam@hotmail.com> - 2012-02-22 04:30 -0800
                Re: Learning to code by reading code Geoff <geoff@invalid.invalid> - 2012-02-22 10:45 -0800
                Re: Learning to code by reading code Nick Keighley <nick_keighley_nospam@hotmail.com> - 2012-02-23 01:12 -0800
                Re: Learning to code by reading code "Rod Pemberton" <do_not_have@noavailemail.cmm> - 2012-02-23 07:34 -0500
                Re: Learning to code by reading code Nick Keighley <nick_keighley_nospam@hotmail.com> - 2012-02-23 05:46 -0800
                Re: Learning to code by reading code "io_x" <a@b.c.invalid> - 2012-02-24 08:38 +0100
                Re: Learning to code by reading code "io_x" <a@b.c.invalid> - 2012-02-24 08:40 +0100
                Re: Learning to code by reading code "io_x" <a@b.c.invalid> - 2012-02-24 09:38 +0100
                Re: Learning to code by reading code "Rod Pemberton" <do_not_have@noavailemail.cmm> - 2012-02-25 05:25 -0500
                Re: Learning to code by reading code Dombo <dombo@disposable.invalid> - 2012-02-25 12:50 +0100
                Re: Learning to code by reading code Nick Keighley <nick_keighley_nospam@hotmail.com> - 2012-02-25 06:13 -0800
                Re: Learning to code by reading code Gareth Owen <gwowen@gmail.com> - 2012-02-26 07:20 +0000
            Re: Learning to code by reading code Juha Nieminen <nospam@thanks.invalid> - 2012-02-21 08:23 +0000
              Re: Learning to code by reading code Juha Nieminen <nospam@thanks.invalid> - 2012-02-21 08:43 +0000
                Re: Learning to code by reading code "Rod Pemberton" <do_not_have@noavailemail.cmm> - 2012-02-21 04:47 -0500
                Re: Learning to code by reading code Juha Nieminen <nospam@thanks.invalid> - 2012-02-21 10:09 +0000
                Re: Learning to code by reading code "Rod Pemberton" <do_not_have@noavailemail.cmm> - 2012-02-22 05:38 -0500
              Re: Learning to code by reading code "Rod Pemberton" <do_not_have@noavailemail.cmm> - 2012-02-21 04:31 -0500
                Re: Learning to code by reading code Juha Nieminen <nospam@thanks.invalid> - 2012-02-21 10:05 +0000
                Re: Learning to code by reading code "Dmitry A. Kazakov" <mailbox@dmitry-kazakov.de> - 2012-02-21 12:21 +0100
                Re: Learning to code by reading code "Rod Pemberton" <do_not_have@noavailemail.cmm> - 2012-02-22 06:04 -0500
                Re: Learning to code by reading code "BartC" <bc@freeuk.com> - 2012-02-21 11:01 +0000
                Re: Learning to code by reading code "Rod Pemberton" <do_not_have@noavailemail.cmm> - 2012-02-22 05:59 -0500
                Re: Learning to code by reading code "BartC" <bc@freeuk.com> - 2012-02-22 12:59 +0000
                Re: Learning to code by reading code "Rod Pemberton" <do_not_have@noavailemail.cmm> - 2012-02-23 07:03 -0500
                Re: Learning to code by reading code "BartC" <bc@freeuk.com> - 2012-02-24 14:20 +0000
            Re: Learning to code by reading code Nick Keighley <nick_keighley_nospam@hotmail.com> - 2012-02-21 01:27 -0800
        Re: Learning to code by reading code Peter Remmers <p.remmers@expires-2011-04-30.arcornews.de> - 2012-02-20 22:25 +0100
          Re: Learning to code by reading code Jorgen Grahn <grahn+nntp@snipabacken.se> - 2012-02-26 08:47 +0000
            Re: Learning to code by reading code "BartC" <bc@freeuk.com> - 2012-02-26 10:55 +0000
        Re: Learning to code by reading code Nomen Nescio <nobody@dizum.com> - 2012-02-22 08:59 +0100
          Re: Learning to code by reading code "Rod Pemberton" <do_not_have@noavailemail.cmm> - 2012-02-22 05:59 -0500
            Re: Learning to code by reading code Nomen Nescio <nobody@dizum.com> - 2012-02-22 13:47 +0100
              Re: Learning to code by reading code "Rod Pemberton" <do_not_have@noavailemail.cmm> - 2012-02-23 06:21 -0500
        Re: Learning to code by reading code Nick Keighley <nick_keighley_nospam@hotmail.com> - 2012-02-22 00:08 -0800
  Re: Learning to code by reading code "Rod Pemberton" <do_not_have@noavailemail.cmm> - 2012-02-19 03:54 -0500
  Re: Learning to code by reading code Marco van de Voort <marcov@toad.stack.nl> - 2012-02-19 11:27 +0000

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