The Story of Mel
59 points by drmorr
59 points by drmorr
I'm sure many folks have seen this before, but I think this is maybe the first time I came across it and thought it was refreshing and delightful. Maybe others will find it similarly so, even if you've seen it in the past.
edit it looks like this has been posted here before but most recently 8 years ago according to my search
It’s one of the classics alongside the 500 mile email, OpenOffice does not print on Thursdays, etc… https://beza1e1.tuxen.de/lore/index.html has collected a few
The 500 mile email makes me laugh every time it pops into my head. What a wonderful story.
You might also enjoy these little articles about the programmer in the story now that you've seen it.
On top of the replies linking to other classics, I'll share this presentation by Bryan Cantrill about oral tradition in software engineering: https://youtu.be/4PaWFYm0kEw.
Indeed. In the age of AI where our passion is twisted and force fed to us this is refreshing.
it looks like this has been posted here before but most recently 8 years ago according to my search
It was 2 months ago, here:
It's like the New Hope to https://thedailywtf.com/articles/the-inner-json-effect 's Phantom Menace
I have actually met Ed Nather, the author of the story. Nice guy.
Real Programmers write in FORTRAN.
Wait... I thought real programmers used punch cards. Meh, kids these days don't know.
Both! According to https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Computer_programming_in_the_punched_card_era
I’m not old enough to have used either.