The worst programming language ever

[BruceH]

(12-02-2021 02:20 PM)KeithB Wrote:  

(12-02-2021 12:37 PM)DGM Wrote:  Also, dropping and scattering your deck of unnumbered punch cards was something we all had to put up with.

A little late for the advice, but at the CalTech computer center, they would always put a diagonal swipe with a marker along the top of the deck to assist when you drop all the cards.

I heard a story of a programmer who worked at a place where the nightshift operators had hit upon a wheeze whereby they would occasionally "accidentally" drop the cards of a long-running job, so it couldn't be submitted and they could go home early.

This was very irritating to the programmer because he lost a day due to no run and he had to re-assemble the deck. The solution turned out to be simple: provide two copies of the deck - dropping one is an accident, dropping two is ... :-)