

Mel the programmer was a real person - l0stman
http://wps.com/projects/LGP-21/mel-the-programmer.html

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Luc
Some handwritten code by Mel on this page:
<http://www.bemorehealthy.com/LGP-30Computer/The30.htm>

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techiferous
That's why when I take on a new web programming project my first action is to
order 10,000 NAND gates.

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jrockway
That's just old-fashioned. Even Real Programmers use FPGAs for the first
iteration now.

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techiferous
Real Programmers dope their own silicon.

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notauser
If you wish to create a program from scratch you must first create the
universe.

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pavelludiq
There is definitely room for improvement there <http://abstrusegoose.com/244>
:D

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ramchip
Call me grumpy, but that joke (the Real Programmer that goes lower and lower
level) is a bit tired...

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jrockway
You're grumpy.

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michael_dorfman
Did anyone actually doubt he was a real person?

Still, it's nice to have his full name.

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jobu
I've always thought it was an exaggeration based on some truth. Either way,
he's definitely a legend. He even has a wiki page:
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mel_Kaye>

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curtis
See also <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/LGP-30>.

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harshpotatoes
I love that story, always nice to hear a story is real and not just an
abstraction for the many 'real programmers' out there. But who are the modern
Mel's? <http://www.codemaestro.com/reviews/9>

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ableal
The link to Bill von Hagen's corroboration is broken; site search yields the
right one: <http://foldoc.org/pub/misc/MelKaye.txt>

(whv: thanks also for the gripe@ece.cmu.edu years)

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rick_2047
I never did get the concept of "real programmer", I mean when it comes to
defining a programmer I would go with wikipedia

 _A programmer is someone who writes computer software. The term computer
programmer can refer to a specialist in one area of computer programming or to
a generalist who writes code for many kinds of software._

Now tell me how anyone who does not know how a language or framework works,
but can still make computer programs out of it, is not a "real" programmer?

