23 Nov
2011
23 Nov
'11
2:44 p.m.
On Tue, Nov 22, 2011 at 8:06 PM, Huw Davies <huw.davies at mail.vsm.com.au> wrote:
On 23/11/2011, at 7:51 AM, Eric Smith wrote:
My very earliest efforts (34 years ago) are lost, but are in PET BASIC
anyway, so historians and archivists can sleep well.
You must have a much better memory than most
people... more than three years ago...
I've got code sitting on a shelf in my study that I wrote nearly 40 years ago. Just
for interest's sake I thought I'd see if I could understand it - the answer is no,
mainly as I can't really read PDP-10 assembler any more :-( I looked at some slightly later stuff (probably 35
years old) written in BCPL - I can read and understand it but don't know why I wrote
it that way. I guess I've learnt something about algorithms in the intervening time!
The oldest works I still have copies of clock in around 30-32 years
old and I would agree - comprehension is not an impediment, but I do
occasionally scratch my head and try to remember *why* I chose that
technique (and it reminds me how much I've learned over the years).
-ethan