I wonder why we have so many galleries with paintings and sculptures
but I haven't heard of one displaying exceptional pieces of code.
Well, there may not be much *code* in museums, but there certainly are plenty of ancient computing devices in them, including chunks of Babbage's creations, Pascal's calculator, "Napier's Bones", and calculating devices retrieved from shipwrecks in the Mediterranean that date back before the birth of Jesus. Then there's Stonehenge and the Mayan calendar.
* Although it would be nice for someone to volunteer to write up a
summary, I'm not sure it's necessary. The summary might be implicit in
followup discussions about solutions held on the mailing list.
Let me argue that the summary is an important feature of a quiz. In many
cases I didn't have the time to wade through all the responses and
solutions posted for a quiz, but I ran through the summary poted at the
end. I guess many people looking for ideas or just being interested may
be in similar position.
I saw the German "Enigma" in a museum last time I was in Washington D.C. It was awesome.
James Edward Gray II
···
On Nov 9, 2007, at 11:03 PM, M. Edward (Ed) Borasky wrote:
Michal Suchanek wrote:
I wonder why we have so many galleries with paintings and sculptures
but I haven't heard of one displaying exceptional pieces of code.
Well, there may not be much *code* in museums, but there certainly are plenty of ancient computing devices in them, including chunks of Babbage's creations, Pascal's calculator, "Napier's Bones", and calculating devices retrieved from shipwrecks in the Mediterranean that date back before the birth of Jesus. Then there's Stonehenge and the Mayan calendar.
ISTR visiting a small room serving as such a museum in Manchester many, many years ago. It was IIRC in the CS dept of the University, but was possibly open to the public. In it were artefacts from the first days of computing, including a log book, something like a school science book for recording experiments. The entries included program code represented in binary (presumably for entry via toggle switches), and the experimental record of program runs.
However I take the point about scarcity of _code_ archives; and museums of exceptional code. At the moment I guess that most of this might be found in a few books (e.g. C++ Gems), on the net, and in some (few) people's heads.
I'd be interested to know of any such museums, though.
Regards,
Alec
···
In message <47353BA0.1010208@cesmail.net>, "M. Edward (Ed) Borasky" <znmeb@cesmail.net> writes
Michal Suchanek wrote:
I wonder why we have so many galleries with paintings and sculptures
but I haven't heard of one displaying exceptional pieces of code.
Well, there may not be much *code* in museums, but there certainly are
plenty of ancient computing devices in them, including chunks of
Babbage's creations, Pascal's calculator, "Napier's Bones", and
calculating devices retrieved from shipwrecks in the Mediterranean that
date back before the birth of Jesus. Then there's Stonehenge and the
Mayan calendar.
> Hmm, maybe I am not really a programmer. I can appreciate elegant code
> (for my subjective definition of elegant) but I rarely struggle to
> perfect my (or somebody else's) code in my free time. For the three
> long years I have been aware there's a quiz running. Sure I have
> looked at some quizzes that seemed particularly interesting, but I
> haven't contributed a single solution.
This is off-topic and I'm obviously biased, but I really believe
anyone who has never tried a programming challenge should. You don't
really think all those Ruby Quiz solutions are built because we like
extra work, do you? You might be surprised to find that it can be
quite fun.
Well, I did not said I never do so. I know the thrill of solving a
puzzle, be it in programming or otherwise.
> I wonder why we have so many galleries with paintings and sculptures
> but I haven't heard of one displaying exceptional pieces of code.
Wow, so we have one already. Good to know.
I like the comment at the end of the page. It may be that I am more
into taking things apart than building them
Thanks
Michal
···
On 10/11/2007, James Edward Gray II <james@grayproductions.net> wrote:
On Nov 9, 2007, at 5:14 PM, Michal Suchanek wrote:
