[ih] History of Flaming

[Brian E Carpenter]

On 17/05/2013 01:27, Craig Partridge wrote:
> I agree older flames are generally better.
> 
> If you want to get truly serious about the genre, I think, in terms of
> influential flames "goto considered harmful" ranks high and, that was a
> paper letter to CACM in 1968.  

Right, and "Real programmers don't write Pascal" was almost in the same
class, also originally paperware I think. It's to be found (undated and
unattributed) at http://www.gotterdammerung.org/humor/real-programmers.html.
Apparently it was in Datamation in July 1983 in a slightly different
version, but it's also attributed to S. Bassett in "USUS News and Report"
December, 1983.  "USUS" was the UCSD p-System User's Society.

It might also be interesting to look for the earliest libel actions over
on-line statements. The earliest I knew of was Godfrey v. Hallam-Baker
but somehow I doubt it was the first.

   Brian

> Recall it opens with "the quality of
> programmers is a decreasing function of the density of go to statements in
> the programms they produce."  (I always thought that part of what made
> a good flame was an opening sentence that viciously grabbed the attention).
> 
> Thanks!
> 
> Craig
> 
>>> the smaller the bandwidth the less flaming, me thinks :-)-O UUCP
>>> with 9600/2400/1200/300 baud *DID* exist in the very distant past...
>> and the best classic flames came from that era
>>
>> randy
> ********************
> Craig Partridge
> Chief Scientist, BBN Technologies
> E-mail: craig at aland.bbn.com or craig at bbn.com
> Phone: +1 517 324 3425
>