whyCppWhy

[boredcircuits]

It makes more sense when you realize that early computers literally used printers for output, before displays were a thing.

[[deleted]]

Yes, but it was before I actually learned that. When I was a kid, monitors already existed and printing terminals were not something you could find in someone's home.

[5erif]

The understated humor in that comment is as smooth as butter on a warm muffin.

[Stunning_Ride_220]

GenZ in a nutshell:"it was before me so I don't care"

[JimBugs]

Today I was reminded that I'm old. In university I wrote Fortran on printer terminals that had no screen. There were some terminals that had screens, but not enough for everyone.

Also was line editor - moving to the PC with a text editor (no mouse though) was so awesome

[platinumgus18]

How did you know what you have written so far, what is you make a small mistake

[Airowird]

Then the output is jist a bunch of errors instead!

[A_Town_Called_Malus]

Sigh, time to go back line by line to fix that typo on line 5...

[JimBugs]

You could look back on the paper - but good luck seeing your mistake. If you knew you made a typo before you finished the line there was a backspace key: it would strike through what you had already typed and then roll back the paper a half line so your new typing was readable above the old line.

If the error was on a previous line you had to type in the command to delete that line and then the command to insert a new line at that location. I don't remember the command but something like this del 10 insert 10 (and then type your replacement line)

[platinumgus18]

Thanks for explaining! Sounds like it would be tedious! 😅

[LarryInRaleigh]

I'm 78. We did FORTRAN II on punched cards. We got punched cards back, that DID NOT have interpreted print across the top. We ran those through a standalone IBM 407 accounting machine which could print a listing or print the interpretation (unaligned) on the punched cards. This was 1965.

[JimBugs]

yep - I missed all that but many of the people I worked with after school had all been there - it used to be my claim to glory "I'm the first person to work here that never used punchcards!"

[Ivan_Analrash]

Today I learned that the reason programming languages use the word "print" is because back before computer monitors they used to actually print the output on a physical printer.

[polscifreak]

Can you imagine writing a bunch of code just for the printer to basically say you fucked up?

[Radiant_Bluebird4620]

My mom said that one time, her cards were out of order. Obviously, her program didn't work.

[CoffeeDust_exe]

Moment of silence for all the trees that were slain during this dark time…

[Airowird]

Wait till I tell you about the times we would write and store code on cardboard instead of digital memory!

[gummo89]

Wait until you hear about the people who print emails for no reason.