|
      |
Structured Programmer's SoliloquySP or not SP -- that is the question:Whether 'tis nobler in the mind to suffer The rules and exceptions of outrageous FORTRAN Or to take arms against a sea of transfers And by structuring end them. To code -- to test No more; and by a test to say we end The heartache, and the thousand natural mistakes That FORTRAN is heir to. 'Tis a consummation Devoutly to be wish'd. To code -- to test. To test -- perchance to bomb: aye, there's the rub! For in that test of code what bugs may come When we have shuffled of this FORTRAN code, Must give us pause. There's the respect that makes calamity of so long lists. [??] For who would bear the whips and scorns of time-sharing Th' operating systems wrong, the computer's crash, The pangs of despis'd code, the turnaround's delay, The insolence of compilers, and the spurns That patient coding of FORTRAN takes When he himself might his quietus make with PL/I? Who would this FORTRAN Bear, To grunt and sweat under a weary language, But that the dread of something after FORTRAN The undiscover'd country, from whose bourne No programmer returns -- puzzles the will, And makes us rather bear those ills we have Than fly to others that we know not of? Thus conscience does make cowards of us all, And thus the native hue of resolution Is sicklied o'er with the pale cast of thought, And enterprises of great pith and moment With this regard their currents turn away And lose the name of action.
-- Henry Kleine and Philip H. Roberts April DATAMATION
|
|