Seeking Computer Science Fokelore? 53
Missing Bookmarks asks: "I accidentally deleted my bookmarks. I lost my 'Lore' folder, where I was collecting links to the classic folklore of the computer science subculture - things like Ken Thompson's Reflections on Trusting Trust, The Tanenbaum-Torvalds Debate, Dijkstra's Go To Statement Considered Harmful, and The Alice and Bob after-dinner speech. I don't need anything from The Jargon File (like The Story of Mel), because that stuff is obviously easy to find. I've listed all the things I could remember; please help me find the ones I've forgotten."
The agony of delete (Score:4, Funny)
Re:The agony of delete (Score:2)
It is indeed unfortunate that you cannot be modded as both funny and insightful.
Re:The agony of delete (Score:1)
Doesn't anyone... (Score:2)
At least I am not alone.
This isn't exactly lore but... (Score:2, Funny)
We did have a client that layed off their systems administrator without first getting the root password.
Original papers on lisp and information theory (Score:5, Informative)
The original paper on Lisp by John McCarthy could be considered an important part of CS history: Recursive Functions of Symbolic Expressions and Their Computation by Machine (Part I) [stanford.edu]
Claude Shannon's A Mathematical Theory of Communication [bell-labs.com] is good to know as well.
Richard Gabriels' Worse Is Better paper is also on the web, but I don't know if that qualifies. It's somewhat new to be folklore.I don't know if any of the original papers by Turing, Church and von Neumann have been put online so post some links if you find them.
Re:Original papers on lisp and information theory (Score:1)
Here [mit.edu]'s the link - my favourite quote: The good news is that in 1995 we will have a good operating system and programming language; the bad news is that they will be Unix and C++.
Re:Editors : Please fix the typo in the Heading ! (Score:1)
Dunno if this helps... (Score:1)
Danny Cohen on Endianness (Score:2, Informative)
IEN 137,
ON HOLY WARS AND A PLEA FOR PEACE
Danny Cohen 1 April 1980
Top Google
http://www.cs.utexas.edu/users/chris/sigc
Re:Danny Cohen on Endianness (Score:1)
MIT AI Labs HAKMEM (Score:2, Informative)
Before the Jargon File there was HAKMEM
http://www.inwap.com/pdp10/hbaker/hakmem/hakmem
Great Book (Score:1)
Mark I documentation, inc. a manual by Turing (Score:3, Informative)
A classic (Score:1)
1. IBM and God: In the beginning god said "I be", and then to correct his grammatical error added "Am"...
go ken! (Score:3, Interesting)
That was an amazing piece, and I'm very much looking forward to what this post turns up.
Re:go ken! (Score:2)
I use objective-C, Python, Java, Perl, and any tools I've come across to make my job easier. But you know what? All the interesting bits are in C. I wonder why?
Knuth on the complexity of songs (Score:3, Interesting)
Start with this recent ask slashdot article (Score:2)
First, you should establish some "Affordable and Safe Data Protection Practices [slashdot.org]"
Then, maybe, you could spend a few minutes googling up some links from
alt.folklore.computers [google.com]
the AC
Re:Start with this recent ask slashdot article (Score:1)
Have you read the Moderator Guidelines [slashdot.org] yet?
One of these days I should like to have a good read of it.
Ian.
how about this piece of obscure computer lore. (Score:4, Funny)
Re:how about this piece of obscure computer lore. (Score:1)
"Zen & the art..."
Re:how about this piece of obscure computer lore. (Score:1)
i recommend reading Lila [amazon.com] too if you liked the philosophy in zen.
Soul of a New Machine (Score:4, Interesting)
Its really quite interesting and it describes computer culture and management and how Data General came to survive and its quest to make a computer to compete with Digital. Great mushroom engineering management quotes (keep then in the dark, feed them Sh!t, watch them grow). Really a great addition to any collection of computer lore.
The Hacker Papers (Score:4, Interesting)
Although not a computer science paper per se, The Hacker Papers [textfiles.com] was one of the first widely read articles about people who spend an excessive amount of time using computers. This article also introduced the original definition of the term hacker to a wider audience.
Java Floating Point (Score:2)
Dijkstra on Programmers and Mathematicians (Score:2, Interesting)
how about levy's "Hackers"? (Score:1)
it's the who's who and the first two chapters. someone else may have it in a more readable font...in fact i used to have a link to a much better version, but now i can't find it...did you delete my bookmarks too?
my two favorites (Score:4, Interesting)
Csh Programming Considered Harmful, by Tom Christiansen.
The Ten Commandments for C Programmers (Annotated Edition) [plethora.net] by Henry Spencer.
Bastard Operator From Hell + Cathederal (Score:1)
The Cathederal and The Bazzar by Eric S Raymond would be a close second.
good procedure (Score:2)
some arguable classics (Score:3, Informative)
I keep a bunch of "classic" bookmarks around. Some are undisputed gems, others are, well, to my taste. Bytes being cheap here's a batch.
Eric Weisstein's World of Mathematics [wolfram.com]
The case of the 500 mile email (Score:1)
This was posted to our LUG mailing list today, I thought it belonged here, even though no mods will probably see it :(
Archive here [cantech.net.au]