[HN Gopher] Coffee with Brian Kernighan [video] ___________________________________________________________________ Coffee with Brian Kernighan [video] Author : type0 Score : 107 points Date : 2022-09-11 12:39 UTC (1 days ago) (HTM) web link (www.youtube.com) (TXT) w3m dump (www.youtube.com) | ontouchstart wrote: | Mentioned in the video | | https://github.com/onetrueawk/awk/tree/unicode-support | enw wrote: | I hate that I even feel like this, but I'm always in awe when old | people (in this case 80+ years old) talk in depth about software | with such fluency. | | I know it's self-evident, but I'm so used to being around younger | folks in tech that it's really cool to see gray hairs. | PostOnce wrote: | Haha, this reminds me, I used to work at a startup social | network and I kept hearing from various people there that | "people over 30 don't understand tech"; buddy, who do you think | built the computer you're using and all of your software tools? | :p | brailsafe wrote: | I mean, I'm 30, and as a software dev, i sure as hell don't | understand tech lol | avg_dev wrote: | As someone approaching middle age, who has been coding | professionally for a long time, I can tell you without a shred | of doubt that I am a far stronger software developer than I was | five years ago. I was far stronger then than I was ten years | ago. The list could go on, but then you'd realize I'm really | old :) | systemvoltage wrote: | I've had the pleasure of working with 60+ year old programmers. | It is opposite of what you expect from the stereotypical | mainstream opinions. I constantly go back to them, call them | for lunch, go for walks, just so I can ask them questions about | old days and how things used to work. There is so much to learn | from hindsight, this knowledge is vanishing. Take advantage of | learning from older people even though it doesn't fit the | current trends. There is wisdom and experience under those | opinions, which can sometimes be a little harsh. Similarly, | read old computer books. Byte magazine has a full archive | online. Read user manuals of IBM 360 system. For entrepreneurs, | read old corporate press releases. Pull up a copy of | Westinghouse's 1978 annual report as you fall to sleep. | Fantastic stuff, I am enamored by history. | avg_dev wrote: | I find it interesting how stuff that was relevant for PCs in | the 80s became relevant for early smartphones. I believe | computing history often is cyclic in nature, so there is | value in the old ways. | systemvoltage wrote: | I always thought of any human progress like gradient | descent algo. Hindsight is clear, and if current | tools/services/methods/processes don't work, look at how it | used to be done. Was it better objectively? May be we took | a step in the wrong direction, go back and learn; try to | take in a different direction, may be there is a higher | ground ahead. It is also important to allow (and be | tolerant) to experimentation in different directions | because without it; we risk getting stuck in a local optima | forever. Opposite of that is Chesterton's fence, there is a | reason why we are on this hill, if you go back, it's a | steep cliff. | [deleted] | janeway wrote: | His new book on his UNIX history is really good. | rasengan0 wrote: | Still in use, 45 years on, thank you Drs A.W.K. and Robbins! | | Would love to purchase an updated book! - I sure hope that .ps of | the 1988 AWK book is lying around somewhere. | avg_dev wrote: | I remember back when I was studying programming at university | the prof was demonstrating something or other on the board. He | wrote a program in Java and it took about 15 lines. Someone | said they could do it in 5 in Perl or something. The prof | replied, "well I could do in one line of awk but that's not the | point..." | | I'm watching the video now and Kernighan addresses exactly this | point. He talks about using the right tool for the job, about | matching only single patterns or else not using awk, the | general propose nature of Python, and more. | type0 wrote: | At least they discussed publishing tools, there surely needs to | be some better tools in-between troff/groff and LaTeX | rasengan0 wrote: | I think Prof Kernighan mentioned | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/XeTeX ___________________________________________________________________ (page generated 2022-09-12 23:00 UTC)