[time-nuts] P word in my mails

Ulrich Bangert df6jb at ulrich-bangert.de
Wed Apr 1 14:03:30 UTC 2009


Gentlemen,

> Gee, and I thought he was talking about Pascal. :-)
> 
> John
> ----

Pascal = P word ??? I am a professional programmer and regulary program in a
number of different languages among them Pascal, the language that comes
after "B" and assembler for some microcontroller families. I have been
thinking that among professionals the question which is the better
programming language is as modern as the last centuries 80th. But if a
reheated discussion is necessary, here is something that I can lough about:

------------------------------------------------------------------------
Unix/Linux an elaborate April Fools prank - Ben Dover
30-May-07 09:52:22

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

In an announcement that has stunned the computer industry, Ken
Thompson, Dennis Ritchie and Brian Kernighan admitted that the Unix
operating system and C programming language created by them is an
elaborate April Fools prank kept alive for over 20 years.  Speaking at
the recent UnixWorld Software Development Forum, Thompson revealed the
following:

In 1969, AT&T had just terminated their work with the GE/AT&T Multics
project.  Brian and I had just started working with an early release
of Pascal from Professor Nichlaus Wirth's ETH labs in Switzerland and
we were impressed with its elegant simplicity and power.  Dennis had
just finished reading Bored of the Rings, a hilarious National Lampoon
parody of the great Tolkien Lord of the Rings trilogy.  As a lark, we
decided to do parodies of the Multics environment and Pascal.  Dennis
and I were responsible for the operating environment.  We looked at
Multics and designed the new system to be as complex and cryptic as
possible to maximize casual users' frustration levels, calling it Unix
as a parody of Multics, as well as other more risque allusions.

Then Dennis and Brian worked on a truly warped version of Pascal,
called "A."  When we found others were actually trying to create real
programs with A, we quickly added additional cryptic features and
evolved into B, BCPL and finally C. We stopped when we got a clean
compile on the following syntax:

for(;P("\n"),R=;P("|"))for(e=C;e=P("_"+(*u++/8)%2))P("|"+(*u/4)%2);

To think that modern programmers would try to use a language that
allowed such a statement was beyond our comprehension!  We actually
thought of selling this to the Soviets to set their computer science
progress back 20 or more years.  Imagine our surprise when AT&T and
other US corporations actually began trying to use Unix and C!  It has
taken them 20 years to develop enough expertise to generate even
marginally useful applications using this 1960's technological parody,
but we are impressed with the tenacity (if not common sense) of the
general Unix and C programmer.

In any event, Brian, Dennis and I have been working exclusively in
Pascal on the Apple Macintosh for the past few years and feel really
guilty about the chaos, confusion and truly bad programming that has
resulted from our silly prank so long ago.

Major Unix and C vendors and customers, including AT&T, Microsoft,
Hewlett-Packard, GTE, NCR, and DEC have refused comment at this time.
Borland International, a leading vendor of Pascal and C tools,
including the popular Turbo Pascal, Turbo C and Turbo C++, stated they
had suspected this for a number of years and would continue to enhance
their Pascal products and halt further efforts to develop C.  An IBM
spokesman broke into uncontrolled laughter and had to postpone a
hastely convened news conference concerning the fate of the RS-6000,
merely stating "VM will be available Real Soon Now."  In a cryptic
statement, Professor Wirth of the ETH institute and father of the
Pascal, Modula 2 and Oberon structured languages, merely stated that
P. T. Barnum was correct. 
----------------------------------------------------------------------------

Best regards
Ulrich Bangert

> -----Ursprüngliche Nachricht-----
> Von: time-nuts-bounces at febo.com 
> [mailto:time-nuts-bounces at febo.com] Im Auftrag von John Ackermann N8UR
> Gesendet: Mittwoch, 1. April 2009 15:12
> An: aa8k at comcast.net; Discussion of precise time and 
> frequency measurement
> Betreff: Re: [time-nuts] P word in my mails
> 
> 
> Gee, and I thought he was talking about Pascal. :-)
> 
> John
> ----
> 
> Mike Naruta AA8K wrote:
> > Not to worry Ulrich, he was using a form
> > of derisive humor.  He was insulting Prologix
> > as undesirable.
> > 
> > It would be similar to referring to Microsoft
> > as the M-word.
> > 
> > 
> > Mike - AA8K
> > 
> > 
> > Ulrich Bangert wrote:
> >> Steve,
> >>
> >> after I read your mail I have been completely perplexed because I 
> >> could by no stretch of imagination detect where you had found the 
> >> aforesaid P word in my mail. It needed the help of some English 
> >> speaking friends and a search in my last mails to find out that I 
> >> have (possibly over a range of more than 30
> >> years) used an American 5 letter word in another sense 
> than most/all of you
> >> seem to interprete it. 
> >>
> >> I HAVE seen the aforesaid word on some doors during my 
> visits to he 
> >> United States and I HAVE understood the meaning of the 
> word in this 
> >> context. But I swear that I have not been aware of the 
> fact that the 
> >> aforesaid word is used EXCLUSIVELY for the location behind these 
> >> doors. If I had been aware of that I would have never used 
> this word 
> >> in a conversation because that is simply not my style.
> >>
> >> Instead, I have been believing (and I swear this is the 
> truth) that 
> >> the aforesaid word is used by a gentlemen to address a 
> group of other 
> >> gentlemen just as a "Hi folks" among noble people but avoiding the 
> >> highly offical salutation "Gentlemen", in a sense a 
> laid-back use of 
> >> "Gentlemen".
> >>
> >> Clearly this is a mistake of mine that I cannot other than to 
> >> apologize for! If anyone of you has felt offended or in 
> any other way 
> >> been affected by my wrong use of this word: Sorry for 
> that, that was 
> >> NOT my intention in using this term. I have started a lot 
> of my posts 
> >> to this group with this word because of the high s/n ratio to be 
> >> found here and the extremely well educated people in the 
> group that I 
> >> hold in high regard.
> >>
> >> Someone should have told me before! If you find this word 
> in one of 
> >> my earlier posts substitute it with "Gentlemen" because 
> that is what 
> >> was ment.
> >>
> >> Thank you Steve for pointing at that. If you had not done 
> it I would
> >> propably have used the word in a wrong sense for the rest 
> of my life.      
> >>  
> >> Best regards
> >> Ulrich Bangert
> >>
> >>
> >>> -----Ursprüngliche Nachricht-----
> >>> Von: time-nuts-bounces at febo.com
> >>> [mailto:time-nuts-bounces at febo.com] Im Auftrag von Steve Rooke
> >>> Gesendet: Mittwoch, 1. April 2009 11:57
> >>> An: Discussion of precise time and frequency measurement
> >>> Betreff: Re: [time-nuts] Prologix
> >>>
> >>>
> >>> This man said the P word without any form of apology :-)
> >>>
> >>> 73
> >>>
> > 
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