Listener comments!

🤖 ♥ 5:51pm
: Mark! Techtonofthemornings! 🤖 ♥ 6:01pm
newton: Hello Mark, & the technically challenged 🤖 ♥ 6:02pm
Handy Haversack: We have to run. But happy New Year and deep thanks for another year of the best hour of radio on the best radio station on earth. Many thanks, Mark!

Happy New Year, Techyons!

🤖 ♥ 6:02pm
ultradamno: 😈 🤖 ♥ 6:02pm
Will thee SG OCNY: Good evening Mark Hurst and all!!! 🤖 ♥ 6:03pm
Spikey BXL: Good evening Mark, luddites 6:03pm
joe_rosevear: Hello Mark and all! 🤖 ♥ 6:04pm
Deano de los Muertos: Howdy Mark and gang ♥ 6:06pm
Mark Hurst:

↳ Handy Haversack @6:02

Thanks, Handy, and happy new year to you & K8! 🤖 ♥ 6:06pm
Ken From Hyde Park: Let me guess: It's between the transport layer and the application layer? ♥ 6:06pm
Mark Hurst: ultra, newton, WtSG, Spikey, joe_r, Deano, KfHP - welcome! Glad to see you here for our last show of the year. ♥ 6:07pm
Mark Hurst:

↳ Ken From Hyde Park @6:06

Heh - no, something more abstract than that... 🤖 ♥ 6:09pm
Bas NL: Hi Mark and all! 🤖 ♥ 6:09pm
Webhamster Henry: Hi Techtonics! I was a major developer of the language "FOCUS", and wrote a bunch of "Little Languages" ♥ 6:09pm
Mark Hurst:

↳ Bas NL @6:09

Welcome, Bas! ♥ 6:10pm
Mark Hurst:

↳ Webhamster Henry @6:09

Welcome, webham - where can we learn more about FOCUS? 🤖 ♥ 6:10pm
Webhamster Henry: the languages of web development: HTML, CSS, Javascript and the backend stuff like PHP are all kind of horrid. 🤖 ♥ 6:10pm
chresti: Hi Mark and techtonicians! 🤖 ♥ 6:10pm
chris in the redwoods: hi, Mark and all!
enjoying the coding chat. :) 🤖 ♥ 6:11pm
Will thee SG OCNY:

↳ Webhamster Henry @6:10

Truth ♥ 6:11pm
Mark Hurst:

↳ Will thee SG OCNY @6:11

Andrew, in his book, does have some choice words about PHP (quoting developers who are... unhappy with it) 🤖 ♥ 6:11pm
chris in the redwoods:

↳ Webhamster Henry @6:10

i had a boss who just called it hacking, in a derogatory sense. he wasn't totally wrong. :) 🤖 ♥ 6:12pm
Webhamster Henry:

↳ Mark Hurst @6:10

It was what was called a "4GL" 4th generation language, proprietary from a company called Information Builders. It was used on IBM Mainframes originally, then leapt to a bunch of other platforms. I worked on that mainframe version, and also on the MacOs (6-7) version that never came out. www.ibi.com... ♥ 6:13pm
Mark Hurst:

↳ Webhamster Henry @6:12

Nice! Sorry it never made it to MacOS. 🤖 ♥ 6:14pm
Webhamster Henry: I like python, and python variants Julia and a few other variants. 🤖 ♥ 6:14pm
Webhamster Henry:

↳ Mark Hurst @6:13

I did make an extension to Hypercard that could talk to FOCUS Databases... ♥ 6:15pm
steveo: I miss Perl 🤖 ♥ 6:15pm
chris in the redwoods: i like python as well. it is ridiculously easy to put something together (albeit i know a great many languages, so the learning curve may not be as steep for me as it is to some) 🤖 ♥ 6:16pm
Webhamster Henry: I like assembler of course. I like super minimal languages like LISP ( until it's unusable) , FORTH, C which I used to call "the language of the phone company". 🤖 ♥ 6:18pm
Webhamster Henry: The fact that command line Shell languages and "make" languages are so awful as well boggles the mind. 🤖 ♥ 6:18pm
Webhamster Henry:

↳ Webhamster Henry @6:18

You spend an awful lot of time just escaping things. 🤖 ♥ 6:18pm
chris in the redwoods: i could never fully wrap my brain around C and so was so overjoyed when Apple created Swift to i could dabble with apps. 🤖 ♥ 6:18pm
Bas NL:

↳ Webhamster Henry @6:18

Hear, hear! 🤖 ♥ 6:19pm
Webhamster Henry: If you'd like to look at computer languages, check out the classic "99 bottles of beer on the wall"
99-bottles-of-beer.net... 🤖 ♥ 6:20pm
Webhamster Henry: I should have started this comment stream with "Don't Get Me Started" ♥ 6:21pm
Mark Hurst:

↳ Webhamster Henry @6:19

I love this! 🤖 ♥ 6:21pm
Jeff Moore:

↳ steveo @6:15

All the best people still want to reach for Perl first. 🤖 ♥ 6:23pm
Dano59: I use "view source" to find downloadable files and that's all the coding I ever wanna see. 🤖 ♥ 6:23pm
Webhamster Henry:

↳ Jeff Moore @6:21

some WFMU CGI-bin routines were written in Perl. 🤖 ♥ 6:24pm
Webhamster Henry: Mr. Smith is referring to the steampunk classic "The Difference Engine" by Gibson and Sterling 🤖 ♥ 6:27pm
Jeff Moore:

↳ Webhamster Henry @6:18

My prime example of a nominally very pleasant language which ends up getting annoying because of quoting/escaping hell is Tcl. 🤖 ♥ 6:27pm
Webhamster Henry:

↳ Dano59 @6:23

I poke around a lot of confusing websites using the Javascript debugging console. Fun hint: want to see your password as you type it in? Do an "inspect element" on the password field, look for the <input line and change type="password" to type="text" ♥ 6:28pm
Sean Bikes: Great comment section here
Very interesting
Thank you 🤖 ♥ 6:28pm
Dano59:

↳ Webhamster Henry @6:19

I am oddly pleased that Hyperczrd is included 🤖 ♥ 6:29pm
Dano59:

↳ Webhamster Henry @6:27

yikes! 🤖 ♥ 6:29pm
Webhamster Henry:

↳ Jeff Moore @6:27

Oh yeah and then there are the "user friendly English"-like languages like COBOL where you say "ADD A TO B GIVING C" 🤖 ♥ 6:30pm
Dano59:

↳ Webhamster Henry @6:27

I'm mainly trying to find info or still-extant files from 20- to 25-year-old defunct music blogs. ♥ 6:30pm
Mark Hurst:

↳ Sean Bikes @6:28

Thanks for checking in, Sean 🤖 ♥ 6:31pm
Webhamster Henry:

↳ Dano59 @6:28

It's really a great illustration of Human ingenuity. As was mentioned, computer languages all start with a model of the problem they want to solve, so these examples show how twisted you can get to do a simple task! There used to be a magazine called Computer Language, that put out a spectacularly funny April Fools issue. 🤖 ♥ 6:31pm
Will thee SG OCNY: I don't program anywhere near how much I used to... Of late, I try to keep my website somewhat updated. 🤖 ♥ 6:32pm
Jeff Moore:

↳ Webhamster Henry @6:29

Right? The sheer amount of typing, just to give that illusion of readability.

I had an ironclad personal rule that I would never learn COBOL, to try to save myself from ever getting sucked into working on mainframe bookkeeping systems.

♥ 6:33pm
PaulRobeson1924: Empathy… 🤖 ♥ 6:34pm
Jeff Moore: Also: programming is a language skill, not (as so many people have assumed) a mathematical one. ♥ 6:35pm
Mark Hurst:

↳ Jeff Moore @6:34

Andrew goes deep on this point in the book. ♥ 6:35pm
Mark Hurst:

↳ PaulRobeson1924 @6:33

Indeed! 🤖 ♥ 6:35pm
Deano de los Muertos: just picked up a local beer called “Ctrl+Alt+Del”… a little techy 🤖 ♥ 6:36pm
Webhamster Henry: I contend that the end of the line is coming for human coding. The human job will be doing the prompt engineering of business processes, and some AI bot will build the code and the tests to test the code, and pay itself, of course. 🤖 ♥ 6:36pm
ultradamno: I would have thought bedlam went back farther...I know heathens are people of the heath ♥ 6:36pm
Sean Bikes: Sorry what is the name of the book - about the left and right hemispheres?   6:36pm
Dean: Does he mention early logician Petrus Ramus?

And what kind of skill is required to distinguish language skills from mathematical skills?

♥ 6:36pm
PaulRobeson1924: Hello Mr.Hurst.
Warm greetings one & all 🤖 ♥ 6:36pm
chris in the redwoods:

↳ Jeff Moore @6:34

when i was a hiring manager in a programming shop, i'd ask folks how many human languages they know, also, reading and playing music counted :) ♥ 6:36pm
Mark Hurst:

↳ Sean Bikes @6:36

Listed & linked here on the playlist - • The Master and His Emissary: The Divided Brain and the Making of the Western World, by Iain McGilchrist   6:36pm
kylepw: What book did he just plug?? 🤖 ♥ 6:36pm
newton:

↳ Sean Bikes @6:36

bookshop.org... ♥ 6:37pm
Sean Bikes: Thank you, Mark and Newton 🤖 ♥ 6:37pm
he can jog: Is the right brain / left brain division still being explored? I thought it wasn't such a clear divide as this. 🤖 ♥ 6:37pm
Webhamster Henry:

↳ chris in the redwoods @6:36

I always thought the programming interview question should be "Do you do cryptic crossword puzzles"? 🤖 ♥ 6:37pm
Jeff Moore:

↳ chris in the redwoods @6:36

right on ♥ 6:38pm
PaulRobeson1924: The mind. The body. & the food we eat ♥ 6:38pm
PaulRobeson1924: The food you eat. The friends you meet on the sullen street.! YEAH! DUDE! ♥ 6:38pm
Mark Hurst: Iain McGilchrist followed up that book with the two-part tome "The Matter with Things: Our Brains, Our Delusions, and the Unmaking of the World." I'd like to read all three volumes at some point. (See meme at left about "my year-end reading statistics" to see a good depiction of my unread book pile.) 🤖 ♥ 6:39pm
Noir Lover: Excellent convo / guest   6:39pm
supremo: I'm an Ada developer and so remain in a fortress. ♥ 6:39pm
Mark Hurst:

↳ he can jog @6:37

McGilchrist has written the definitive account - and he disposes with the simplistic left-right models. 🤖 ♥ 6:39pm
chris in the redwoods:

↳ Webhamster Henry @6:37

haha! i'd fail that interview, though i *try* :) ♥ 6:39pm
Mark Hurst:

↳ Noir Lover @6:39

Thanks, Noir ♥ 6:40pm
Mark Hurst: "Writing good software is an exercise in empathy." 🤖 ♥ 6:41pm
Jeff Moore:

↳ Webhamster Henry @6:37

I hope that the correct answer to that is "Hell no, because people who love those damned things are too annoyingly impressed with dumb forms of cleverness that you can't possibly work with them!" 🤖 ♥ 6:41pm
chris in the redwoods:

↳ Mark Hurst @6:40

totally agree. wow, thanks, Mr. Smith for saying it so 'matter-of-fact.' 🤖 ♥ 6:42pm
Will thee SG OCNY: People who write ✍️ solid comments and documentation... They are brilliant... Some code is just a jumble of undocumented crap 🤖 ♥ 6:42pm
Webhamster Henry:

↳ chris in the redwoods @6:39

Programming is like what's know as "Variety Cryptics where they are not only cryptic, but may have weird rules like "all the answers can add or remove a letter to get the real answer."   6:42pm
Al Garve: City in my head / Dystopia 🤖 ♥ 6:42pm
he can jog: "not liking people" is a pretty huge generalization that doesn't take into account neuro-divergent people, IMHO... this is an interesting discussion otherwise though... 🤖 ♥ 6:42pm
Bas NL: Coding serves so many purposes. And needs a variety of brains. 🤖 ♥ 6:43pm
chris in the redwoods:

↳ Bas NL @6:42

absolutely true!   6:44pm
Dean: After the moon? You go to San Gabriel. 🤖 ♥ 6:44pm
Jeff Moore:

↳ he can jog @6:42

Hey! Good to see you pop up! 🤖 ♥ 6:44pm
ultradamno: The show Silicon Valley was mentioned earlier, it not coincidentally could be viewed as characters from all over the spectrum. That is certainly something to take into account. 🤖 ♥ 6:45pm
chris in the redwoods:

↳ Will thee SG OCNY @6:42

we aren't so distant from a time when "smart" programmers deliberately obfuscated their code. thankfully, at least in my experience, there are fewer and fewer of those narcissists. 🤖 ♥ 6:45pm
he can jog: Hi Jeff! :) 🤖 ♥ 6:46pm
Will thee SG OCNY:

↳ chris in the redwoods @6:45

It was a job security sort of thing. They can't get rid of me if I'm the only one who knows how it works ♥ 6:46pm
bleubombersune: Superb 🤖 ♥ 6:46pm
chresti:

↳ Dean @6:44

What? 🤖 ♥ 6:47pm
Webhamster Henry:

↳ Will thee SG OCNY @6:46

Sometime, just by being old, clear code becomes obfuscated! This is "Legacy Code" 🤖 ♥ 6:47pm
chris in the redwoods:

↳ Will thee SG OCNY @6:46

*exactly* and it was up to people like me to get them to change or fire them. it costs more than it benefits any business. 🤖 ♥ 6:47pm
ultradamno: I love that Brightly Shining graphic. Though considering Hot Frosty and Sugarplummed both came out this season, it's a lot harder to out-absurd the x-mas movie grindhouse 🤖 ♥ 6:48pm
chris in the redwoods:

↳ Webhamster Henry @6:47

there's a lot of truth there, to be sure. 🤖 ♥ 6:48pm
Ken From Hyde Park: Welcome, Little Rockers! 🤖 ♥ 6:48pm
DjLorraine: KABF? Little Rock   6:48pm
Bea: Welcome, Little Rock!! 🤖 ♥ 6:48pm
Deano de los Muertos: congrats on another syndication, Mark. Welcome Little Rock   6:48pm
Dean: sigh

there is no human-made environment

computers don't "become" mundane. they are mundane, part of the world. It's our business whether or not computers are boring or commonplace.

I mean, chresti, that San Gabriel is a marvelous place to have the privilege to visit, and I mean it genuinely. I don't get the adoration of the exotic.

♥ 6:48pm
PaulRobeson1924: The mind, the body, the spirit, the spirit in the sky- WFMU 🤖 ♥ 6:49pm
Webhamster Henry:

↳ chris in the redwoods @6:48

The Official Way To Do It changes a lot, <cough,cough>Apple audio APIs<cough, cough> 🤖 ♥ 6:50pm
ultradamno:

↳ ultradamno @6:47

...not to mention Carnage For Christmas bsky.app... 🤖 ♥ 6:50pm
chris in the redwoods:

↳ Webhamster Henry @6:49

absolutely. if you don't love learning something new every year, don't become a programmer. hehe. 🤖 ♥ 6:50pm
chresti:

↳ Dean @6:48

Ah see. 🤖 ♥ 6:51pm
Will thee SG OCNY: Now its probably coded with gen Z slang
If skibidibi then cringe 🤖 ♥ 6:51pm
Webhamster Henry:

↳ Song: "Mark's comments"

Obligatory trailer: www.youtube.com... 🤖 ♥ 6:51pm
chris in the redwoods: must leave early to run an errand. thanks, Mark. fabulous conversation.
thanks, everyone here for the great conversation as well! 🤖 ♥ 6:51pm
DjLorraine:

↳ DjLorraine @6:48

88.3 FM ! ♥ 6:52pm
coelacanth∅: Thanks Mark! Thanks Andrew! 🤖 ♥ 6:52pm
Webhamster Henry:

↳ chris in the redwoods @6:50

I tell people that programming IS continuous learning, so those damn interviews about solving some stupid CompSci problem are pointless!   6:52pm
Dean: My hammer still works just fine. 🤖 ♥ 6:52pm
he can jog: speaking of supercollider -- thank you for an interesting show, Makr! -- sonic-pi.net <-- runs supercollider synths, but lets you program it in a basic-ish language (very good!) 🤖 ♥ 6:54pm
Spikey BXL: Thanks Mark and happy new year! 🤖 ♥ 6:55pm
herb.nyc: Be positive. Thx for reminding me (as I veer negative too much). And thx for doing techtonic program. Happy new year to you, and all. 🤖 ♥ 6:55pm
he can jog: I'm also so happy to Andrew featured here :) 🤖 ♥ 6:55pm
Webhamster Henry: Happy 25th anniversary of Y2K! brianwoodbury.com... 🤖 ♥ 6:55pm
Ken From Hyde Park: Thanks, Mark. See you in year N = N + 1.   6:55pm
Dean: That's a bogus history. "Computer" meant the person who made calculations back in the 17th century.   6:56pm
Fredericks: Socialize the costs: privatize the profits. 🤖 ♥ 6:56pm
Will thee SG OCNY: My mother in law used to code punch card programs at Western Union ♥ 6:56pm
PaulRobeson1924: Give
Up your vows   6:56pm
drew: Open source software (OSS) has been embraced by big tech companies and is another way they drain wealth from us now. OSS socializes the cost of software and allows those giants to privatize the profits.
It's a far cry from Richard Stallman's "free software," focusing on freedoms for people, not "free as in beer." 🤖 ♥ 6:56pm
Bas NL: Thanks Mark and Andrew! Have a great New Year all!   6:56pm
Fredericks:

↳ Dean @6:55

They were women, no? 🤖 ♥ 6:56pm
erik: My uncle was a computer - he calculated if the highway department was being billed correctly by the contractors in the 50's to 70s. 🤖 ♥ 6:58pm
Noir Lover: At least make the left brained coders take a corporate improv class. 🤖 ♥ 6:58pm
erik: I write code as part of my living, if we are not reducing toil in the users life, we aren't doing the job right. 🤖 ♥ 6:58pm
chresti: Thanks Mark and all! 6:58pm
joe_rosevear: Thanks, Mark and Andrew! 🤖 ♥ 6:58pm
Deano de los Muertos: Thanks Mark   6:58pm
drew: Yes, most computers used to be women before Burroughs, IBM, et al. replaced them.   6:58pm
yippie: i also heard that one of the first programmable computer like devices was used to weave, which is historically known to be a good job for women   6:59pm
Fredericks:

↳ drew @6:58

William F.? 6:59pm
joe_rosevear: Any Bash coders out there? ♥ 7:00pm
bleubombersune: Mark great interview. All stray safe and be well Enjoy the rest of 2024. Fortran is my bag 7:00pm
ifny: Absolutely loved everything about everything about everything in today's show. As per usual! Didn't get to hear the whole episode but can't wait to download it for wardriving. Looking forward to reading the comments later as well. Solidarity coding FTW <3 ♥ 7:00pm
Mark Hurst:

↳ ifny @7:00

Thanks, ifny! ♥ 7:00pm
Mark Hurst:

↳ bleubombersune @7:00

Thanks, bleu ♥ 7:00pm
bleubombersune: Mark thanks for all you provide in 2024 ♥ 7:01pm
Mark Hurst: Hi all, thanks for the good comments this evening and all year in 2024. See you next year! 🤖 ♥ 7:01pm
Will thee SG OCNY: Thank you Mark Hurst, Andrew, and all!!! Be well, Have a great New Year!!! 7:01pm
ifny: Best.Homework.Ever. 🤖 ♥ 7:01pm
Ken From Hyde Park:

↳ joe_rosevear @6:59

Shell programming? I've done a little. 7:03pm
joe_rosevear:

↳ Ken From Hyde Park @7:01

Cool.