gerry wrote on 2025-03-31, 09:39:

I suppose its specialisation. it isn't needed to build a storefront app for online shopping, in fact very little is ...

Oh I get it that you don't have to know such "boring details" to make
use of someone elses software...

Perhaps a better way to express the thought:
... "professional programmers" who have made a career in computing, don't
know what a computer fundamentally *is* or have any clue about how that
software performs it function, what happens "behind the scenes" ...

It would almost equally surprise me (although I'm sure a few such people
exist) that someone who drives wouldn't know anything about what an "engine"
or "tires" are ... you don't have to know such things to "push levers on
the floor" or "turn the big round thing"!

But how many professionals: truck, bus, taxi drives... etc.
Don't know such fundamentals about the machine they have built their
career on?

Programmers are an odd bunch!
--- Sez a guy who "has to know" how something works before he can use it! --

DaveDDS wrote on 2025-03-31, 12:40:

Oh I get it that you don't have to know such "boring details" to make use of someone elses software... […]
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gerry wrote on 2025-03-31, 09:39:

I suppose its specialisation. it isn't needed to build a storefront app for online shopping, in fact very little is ...

Oh I get it that you don't have to know such "boring details" to make
use of someone elses software...

Perhaps a better way to express the thought:
... "professional programmers" who have made a career in computing, don't
know what a computer fundamentally *is* or have any clue about how that
software performs it function, what happens "behind the scenes" ...

It would almost equally surprise me (although I'm sure a few such people
exist) that someone who drives wouldn't know anything about what an "engine"
or "tires" are ... you don't have to know such things to "push levers on
the floor" or "turn the big round thing"!

But how many professionals: truck, bus, taxi drives... etc.
Don't know such fundamentals about the machine they have built their
career on?

Programmers are an odd bunch!
--- Sez a guy who "has to know" how something works before he can use it! --

Using the driving analogy i'd say from anecdotal experience the majority of the 'public' who drive cars don't understand much about them and i would say that's true of some, but perhaps less as proportion, of those who drive for a living.

that translates well into programming. the "public" in officework, who may well use excel and similar tools and occasionally need to "code" something (i.e. employ some script) don't really have much insight into what happens 'under the hood' and a great many who program for a living have competence in their toolsets (whatever that is - java, sql, unity etc) but are not really thinking about what happens under the hood at all.

i'd also suggest (speculatively) the the more surface level know-how a person has the more susceptible they are both to shifts in tech (being left high and dry, unable to retrain) or to revolutions (eg being completely replaced by gen ai), although i'm not actually sure on that - specialisation keeps splitting into new specialisations

I think that's a good analogy.

In fact, I'd take it further - the graduates we churn out these days often don't have the level of understanding of fundamental computing science concepts that we had to go through some 25-30 years ago.

Although not many people are going to be using assembly these days, I'd argue that it's still vital to understand from the perspective of knowing how von Neumann architecture works. Instead it's immediately into high level languages, libraries, and other API constructs that make it easy to plug things together, but misses a lot of the fundamental theory of how the thing hangs together, the basics of how an operating system works, or why arranging your data structures in memory one way vs another will kill performance.

Exactly,I don't expect all programmers to be able to program in assembly, nor do I expect all to be
able to spout off the available instructions/registers within whatever end-system they happen to be
developing something for at the time...

Nor do I expect everyone driving a car to be able to do engine work, measure tire treads, or be able to
spout off all the critical engineering details in their designs...

But I *DO* expect that if someone pulls up in a car with a defect pronounced enough that I notice it, and I
say something like "you might want to get you engine/tires checked out" - to NOT respond with "whats an engine/tire?"

Same way - if a "programmer" doing scripts of some sort and is complaining that the system is too slow, hears
me muse "I wonder how many instructions it takes to do that" - doesn't say "whats an instruction".

Eh. Average programmers knowledge in this world is not good at all. They merely can find a way how to complete a task without actually knowing what is going on, regardless of the domain or language.

And if we compare to trades, yes a clueless computer professional does look odd, but not if we compare it to arts, entertainment, corporate, politics...
In these fields of work a lot of people earn a lot of money using stuff they know almost nothing about.
A top grossing singer songwriter that doesn't know which key he's in.

Programming is not really engineering, it is weird. There are clueless programmers, there are good programmers but who aren't good engineers. Their devices perform by themselves but aren't usable in a desired systems design.
So you can try to approach it from an engineering angle as best as you can, but the truth to the matter, specs can be bent, abstract mechanisms can be put to work, entire mindsets can be transferred to code. This is not possible in engineering, you can't base your design on a surreal sprocket that only exists in your head but here you can realize it to the final atom. (leaving everyone else looking at your code in confusion and anger)

It's good to use it in good measure - don't screw up the architecture and the basic design, and you can do things terribly inoptimal as you go, and refactor later. It helps to move project along if you don't drown in details all the time.
This is not possible when you're building a bridge.

So yeah, weird 'discipline'.

@DaveDDS your work is quite impressive, judging by the site at least. Do you have some library reference manuals for MicroC (or its POSIX compliant?) and tool documentation I could peek into? I'm not used to buying a compiler, but it does look attractive for 8088 projects.

zb10948 wrote on 2025-03-31, 18:40:

@DaveDDS your work is quite impressive, judging by the site at least. Do you have some library reference manuals for MicroC (or its POSIX compliant?) and tool documentation I could peek into? I'm not used to buying a compiler, but it does look attractive for 8088 projects.

Thanks, Btw, you can't "buy" Micro-C now ... for years I made a good living
selling these tools, but now that I've retired, everything (and it's source code)
is available free. (The executable PC/86 compiler has always been free).

--- From my COPY.TXT (in the source code section of my site)
-In cases where I've already published the executable program, I've included
only very limited documentation here. For a good understanding of this
software, you should look within the "normal" distribution on my site.
-In cases where I have provided documentation, it may be a .DOC file
Note: This a *NOT* a "windows" file - This requires my TYPESET tool!
----------------------
Best way to get docs for MC is to grab the MCDOS version, there are full
docs for the compiler, library and various tools. ** I'll warn you however
they are not is a "normal" document format (.PDF, .DOC etc.) - they are
in an obscure, unknown (and apparently unreadable to many "modern"
users) - called "TEXT" -- .TXT file 😀

**I just realized** I used to publish "trial"s of the various embedded
toolsets: 6808, 6809, 6811, 6812, 6816, 8051, 8085, 8086, 8098, AVR

In 2019, during my recovery, I lost my main website - am now using space given
by a friend, and not trying to run a company anymore, I've not taken up space
for those trials - which means the Embedded toolset docs aren't available...
I'll look into adding a "Documents" section with everything.

--

If you click on my name near the top of my site main page, it will take you
to an "about me" page - This has sub-pages describing some of the things I've
done, incl a bit on how I developed the compiler, what my goals were, what
exactly it is (and isn't), and a comparison with other fairly well known
small compilers that I wrote "back in the day".

DaveDDS wrote on 2025-03-31, 20:45:

... **I just realized** ... which means the Embedded toolset docs aren't available...
I'll look into adding a "Documents" section with everything.

Ok, It's been dozens of years since I regenerated the DDS products, and
things have moved around enough on my systems that it would take "some time"
to find and regenerate all the documents...

But... I still had copies of the original install packages (which have all
the executables, documentation etc.) - So I have created a new area on my
site which has all the original DOS install packages.

(If you've been to my site before don't forget to refresh to make sure you
see any new stuff)

You can install any of these (the installers work well in DosBox) and get
the original trial/demo versions, or...

I have also generated and provided a "DDS complete" product install key.
"DDS Complete" was "everything", and this product key can install ANY of
my DOS software packages fully (non trial).