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1. psf (psf@oldbytes.space)'s status on Monday, 27-Jun-2022 04:46:32 UTC psf

   TIL Grace Hopper predicted #RISC in 1955.

   https://archive.org/details/bitsavers_univacHopp55_436128/page/n6/mode/1up

   "There is little doubt that the development of automatic coding will influence the design of computers.... Instructions added only for the convenience of the programmer will be omitted since the computer, rather than the programmer, will write the detailed coding."

   • Santa Claes 🇸🇪🇭🇰🎅 likes this.
   • Sexy Moon (moon@shitposter.club)'s status on Monday, 27-Jun-2022 05:05:04 UTC Sexy Moon

     in reply to
     @psf she appears to be talking about code reuse
   • Santa Claes 🇸🇪🇭🇰🎅 (clacke@libranet.de)'s status on Monday, 27-Jun-2022 05:05:04 UTC Santa Claes 🇸🇪🇭🇰🎅

     in reply to

     • Sexy Moon
     @Moon @psf It's important to note that when reading CS discourse from the 50s words do not mean the same things as they do in today's discourse.
     
     Someone might talk about a "compiler" and they'll mean what today we'd call a linker.
     
     Someone might say "programmers will no longer do programming" and they'll mean programmers will no longer turn machine code mnemonics into hex opcodes on paper.
     
     Without yet having read the paper I'm guessing that "automatic coding" means using what we now view as just a high-level programming language. The stdlib offers code reuse of fundamental data structures and algorithms.
   • Santa Claes 🇸🇪🇭🇰🎅 (clacke@libranet.de)'s status on Monday, 27-Jun-2022 05:24:24 UTC Santa Claes 🇸🇪🇭🇰🎅

     in reply to

     • Sexy Moon
     @Moon @psf Reading the paper she goes from code generation of the lowest-level kind, instruction emission, to stuff like math routines that would go into a stdlib or runtime, to payroll routines that would today be a package dependency.
     
     But then she returns to the CPU and while it is not a direct prediction of RISC she realizes that the practice of putting subroutines into opcodes will go away as there are just too many potential subroutines. Software will eat itself and most software will be expressed as other software.
   • Sexy Moon (moon@shitposter.club)'s status on Monday, 27-Jun-2022 05:24:25 UTC Sexy Moon

     in reply to

     • Santa Claes 🇸🇪🇭🇰🎅
     • Sexy Moon
     @clacke @psf does talk about two languages though, one similar to mathematics and symbolic wjile another suited to business heuristics which sounds a lot like haskell and java lol
   • Sexy Moon (moon@shitposter.club)'s status on Monday, 27-Jun-2022 05:24:26 UTC Sexy Moon

     in reply to

     • Santa Claes 🇸🇪🇭🇰🎅
     @clacke @psf within a page she talks about generic payroll and inventory functions for business
   • Santa Claes 🇸🇪🇭🇰🎅 (clacke@libranet.de)'s status on Monday, 27-Jun-2022 05:28:21 UTC Santa Claes 🇸🇪🇭🇰🎅

     in reply to

     • Sexy Moon
     > Without yet having read the paper I'm guessing that "automatic coding" means using what we now view as just a high-level programming language. The stdlib offers code reuse of fundamental data structures and algorithms.
     
     Yep, on page 3 she literally refers to Fortran as an "automatic coding system" under development, one of many. Basically because it has libraries of subroutines.
     
     @Moon @psf
   • Santa Claes 🇸🇪🇭🇰🎅 (clacke@libranet.de)'s status on Monday, 27-Jun-2022 05:45:06 UTC Santa Claes 🇸🇪🇭🇰🎅

     in reply to

     • Sexy Moon
     @Moon @psf Some of them are looser and have since acquired a more distinct meaning. Some of them are firmer and have since blurred together!
     > [automatic coding] can release the coder from most of the routine and drudgery of producing the instruction code. It may, some day, replace the coder or release him to become a programmer.In this terminology we don't have "coders" anymore except those select few that drop down to assembly because they're writing a kernel, programming language or low-level data structure library.
     
     The rest of us are "programmers" who would have back then have drawn boxes and arrows for the coders to translate but are today instead writing text for our auto-coding compilers and linkers to translate.
   • Sexy Moon (moon@shitposter.club)'s status on Monday, 27-Jun-2022 05:45:07 UTC Sexy Moon

     in reply to

     • Santa Claes 🇸🇪🇭🇰🎅
     @clacke @psf i'm probably being too critical and you're right that she wouldn't use as firm terms as we benefit from now
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   • Kit Rhett Aultman (roadriverrail@signs.codes)'s status on Tuesday, 28-Jun-2022 00:10:47 UTC Kit Rhett Aultman

     in reply to

     @psf Grace knew what was up. One of the most consistently practical minds of the golden age of computers.

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