[PLUG] The joy of refactoring

[Alan]

On Wed, 2017-08-23 at 10:30 -0700, Dave wrote:
> In 1969-70 I was at the U of Ills where I met a DEC PDP-8. Would
> change 
> my career path.
> 
> Ran my Doctoral Dissertation data analyses on an IBM 360/40 in 1970
> at 
> Cal Poly SLO. Fun days.

When I moved to Alaska I had been going to a private school. My reading
skills were very good, but my math skills we not. My mother hired a
math tutor for me from the University of Alaska. She figured the best
method to get me interested in math was by teaching me Fortran. I was
in 4th grade at the time. Spent a lot of time in the computer lab from
then on.

> 
> 
> On 8/23/2017 6:01 AM, Rich Shepard wrote:
> > On Tue, 22 Aug 2017, Alan wrote:
> > 
> > > Sometimes a rewrite is a useful and needed thing.
> > 
> >     Thanks, Alan, for allowing us to share our obscure bug
> > experiences on this
> > thread. :-)
> > 
> >     In grad school in 1972 I wrote an ecosystem ecological energy
> > flow model
> > in FORTRAN IV to run on the U. of Illinois' IBM S/360. It used more
> > than a
> > whole box of 80-column Hollerith cards for input. When it ran it
> > produed
> > incorrect results, but only the same 2 or 3 wrong answers each
> > time. So I
> > printed the source code listing on the wide green-bar paper that
> > all the
> > line printers used. The output was about 1 inch thick.
> > 
> >     I carefully examined each line of code multiple times without
> > seeing the
> > error. Finally, I took the printed listing to the computer center's
> > help
> > desk. They examined it without finding the problem.
> > 
> >     One day, strictly by chance while looking at a new printed copy
> > (likely
> > done on a printer with a newer ribbon) I saw the error jump up and
> > bite me
> > on the nose.
> > 
> >     Instead of a loop index written as FOR I = 1 TO N I had
> > mistyped it as FOR
> > 1 = 1 TO N. Distinguishing 1 from the uppercase I was difficult
> > and, because
> > all of us expected to see I and not 1 in that position we all
> > overlooked it.
> > 
> >     Haven't forgotten this after all these years.
> > 
> > Rich
> > _______________________________________________
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> > PLUG at lists.pdxlinux.org
> > http://lists.pdxlinux.org/mailman/listinfo/plug
> 
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