Java > Scala

[Walter Bright]

On 12/19/2011 1:35 PM, bearophile wrote:
> Given the amount of time it takes to punch the cards, waiting for your turn
> to run the program, and reading the printouts, I think punchcards also teach
> you to use your brain first and to think before doing/trying things, instead
> of going by trial and error. Trial and error is an efficient strategy only if
> you have interactive tools that speedup the cycle and the problems to solve
> are not too much hard.

I've never seen any evidence that punchcards made one a better programmer. For 
sure, one wrote far fewer programs, and infinitely shorter ones, with 
punchcards, and so simply lack of experience would make one worse.

As a programmer who initially learned with punchcards, using an interactive tty 
is far, far, FAR more productive.

And using a full screen editor is another HUGE jump in productivity. Ditto for 
going to big screens and multiple windows.

There are many things I miss about the olden days of programming, but 
punchcards, paper tape, and ASR-33 teletypes are not among them. While I'm at 
it, cassette tapes, floppies and modems I always hated and am glad to be done with.