Post AtGwBVucEpdNXNbFQG by JohnMashey@mstdn.social
 (DIR) More posts by JohnMashey@mstdn.social
 (DIR) Post #AtGwBMiERVNf0MjjN2 by amoroso@fosstodon.org
       2023-03-28T15:45:11Z
       
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       This post nicely captures why AWK is such a delightful and effective little language:"A minimum of features liberates creativity. When there is only one way to do something, you don’t spend a lot of time choosing that very way."https://maximullaris.com/awk.html#awk #linux
       
 (DIR) Post #AtGwBNZ3H7dDeBRuhU by JohnMashey@mstdn.social
       2023-03-28T22:37:29Z
       
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       @amoroso1 of 4/ Cable Repair Adminstrative System(CRAS) was Bell Labs software built late 1970s for telcos:https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1002/j.1538-7305.1982.tb04342.x (sorry paywall), From that paper:Lines of code16K PL/I (part on IBM mainframe, rest on UNIX)10K C15K Shell (mostly awk, for data transforms & reports) 6K Misc33K documentationThis was done to move fast, adapt to real needs in the field(1st Field Trial Boston, 2nd in Southwest Bell, who told us on 1st meeting they did things different than Yankees.)
       
 (DIR) Post #AtGwBOEslb5ljv1Jtw by JohnMashey@mstdn.social
       2023-03-28T22:41:58Z
       
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       @amoroso 2 of 4/After CRAS was running in telco, I printed the shell scripts/awk code, left a copy on Brian's desk, at that time the largest collection of awk in production use. He was surprised, said "We built awk for little programs!" I Said: "It works, it was fast to write, easy to change." And later, I had someone write C functiosnthat made it easy to recode performance-sensitive cases in C.A bit later, A, W & K invited me over to give input on features for a revised implementation.
       
 (DIR) Post #AtGwBVucEpdNXNbFQG by JohnMashey@mstdn.social
       2023-03-28T22:49:35Z
       
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       @amoroso 3 of 4 Al Aho (of course a brilliant computer scientist) asked how could Bell Labs run projects with 100s of software people, because A, W, K were 3 guys in nearby offices that had known each other for years, and a 3-person software project was hardest thing he'd ever done!I laughed, as BTL had many projects with dozens of folks, admittedly, only a few were in the 200-300 range.Here is accompanying paper on the CRAS documentation system we built:https://linguistics.berkeley.edu/glushko/glushko_files/bstj-glushkobianchi.pdf
       
 (DIR) Post #AtGwBdhnGO8Bhvf7Y0 by JohnMashey@mstdn.social
       2023-03-28T22:54:16Z
       
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       @amoroso 4 of 4/ After we'd done this software/documentation development endironment system for CRAS, other projects in our lab wanted it, so we got funding to generalize it, as SOLID - Systems for On-Line Information Development. After they did, it started getting picked up in projects beyond our lab.. By 1982 it was used in a dozen, but I think it eventually spread to 30-40 projects around BTL.https://linguistics.berkeley.edu/glushko/glushko_files/SOLID.pdf