Re: [MacPerl-AnyPerl] WinPerl, MacPerl and DB_File

[Arved Sandstrom <Arved_37@chebucto.ns.ca>]

On Mon, 17 May 1999, jason white wrote:

> 
> Tried to talk him into getting a Mac, but that's a no-go despite his
> frustrations with WinDOS.
> 
Interesting comment. Did he explain why?

I've been in the field for 20+ years. I was introduced to Fortran IV back
in the mid '70's, and by '78 or '79 was marvelling over green screens
(recall, I was used to card readers and Hollerith code). Through the early
1980's I did assembler on a VAX 780 and wrote Pascal on CDC  mainframes.

And around 1982 or 1983 something really significant happened. The firm I
was with had a machine running CP/M, and it was a little box, and I
noticed that it worked OK. Plus I bought a Commodore 64 - I still have it.
BTW, the C64 still works, and I still know how to program it in
assembler.

Just about the same time a buddy of mine bought a Mac. He'd taken CS in
college, and we knew about the Apples, but this little box that ran off
of floppies and had a stupendous 512K of RAM stunned us. I still recall 3
or 4 of us sitting around this box back in '84 or so marvelling at the
graphics. My buddy had the complete set of IM, and we learned Pascal all
over again so we could access the Toolbox. Recall, too, that back in '84 C
was not an option. I didn't know about it - Fortran was my game, and most
CS people swore by Pascal.

So here I am in 1999 working with a PowerMac at home, an original 6100,
and I work with top of the line PC's at work, and I'm comfortable enough
with Unix that I helped install a DEC Alpha system at a major Canadian
university, and followed up by making sure that things like gcc worked on
it, which was a pretty big deal when both DEC Alpha and gcc were young,
but it got done. And I recall using Linux back in '94. Linux 1.

So am I boasting? Maybe I am. But it hit me that your guy decided not to
take a chance in face of all evidence to the contrary. There are better
systems and OS's and boxes out there. Is this just all business now, or
can we still go after elegance?

Could be that I'm getting old at 37. Dunno.

Tell the guy to take a chance.

Arved



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