Many years ago but I don't want to see it again - ever. However, I'd gladly go with dBase III and Clipper again.

And if your teletype was an IBM golfball typewriter you could write a program called Noddy that made the golfball nod its head nid-nod. We even had a ping-pong game which made the golfball go across the palten writing ping and coming back writing pong. :)

Maybe the comment and the error message should have been ' This code should always be 5 characters or more than 7 characters.

"It's 8 o'clock Greenwich. Meantime, here is the news" If you've ever heard the Goon Show, the classic comedy radio show of the 1950's from the BBC with Peter Sellers, Spike Milligan and Harry Secombe, this particular quote was one of their favourites.

I prefer the old BIOS message "Keyboard not found. Press any key to continue"

Self-taught?? Isn't taught pushing it a bit....

When I'm not too sure of a spelling I search with both alternatives and the one with the most hits is the winner.

Most definitely yes. I code for work and then at home I code for fun and to try out new things. I've been doing this for more years than I would care to mention, though I will say that my first code was done on punched cards.

Oric Atmos anyone? I started with a teletype terminal - actually an IBM golfball typewriter - on a 360 but that wasn't mine :)

I belive that any list has to include Donald Knuth and the Art of Programming. In my time it was a standard and it definitely set the standards for many things that came later. Today you might read it like a history book but it explains most of the things that we take for granted now but in the olde days we had to figure out.

You might argue the category but Matrix is in there. Soylent Green as well.

The only reason why farts stink is so that the deaf can know what's happening.

How can I trust any list that doesn't have Fortran somewhere there

That reminds me: Last month I couldn't spell programmer, now I is one. Chris

After following this discussion I come back to something that has been bothering me for some years now. Where is the good old top down method of programming where there were no classes and you solved everything with a gosub and a goto. These arcane problems with classes never came up then. And even back then, the programs still worked. Chris

All travel agents around the world using Amadeus for booking airline tickets cannot use IE7 because it is incompatible with the Amadeus softwware. Until Amadeus brings out a new release, we have to remain on IE6 or we won't be able to book airline tickets

After 30 something years I still wouldn't change Analyst/Programmer for anything.

Yesterday I couldn't even spell programmer, now I is one. Chris

You bring back memories of the good? old days when a program had to be designed because it wouldn't fit in memory. I still remember punching cards and being careful about the order you put them into the card reader so that it would run. JCL and DD statements anybody? Chris