1982 Jokes

Part 9 - (The Future of Real Programmers) - the final part
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What of future? It is a matter of some concern to Real Programmers that the latest generation of
computer programmers are not being brought up with the same outlook on life as their elders. Many of
them have never seen a computer with a front panel. Hardly anyone graduating from school these days
can do hex arithmetic without a calculator. College graduates these days are soft - protected from the
realities of programming by source level debuggers, text editors that count parentheses, and "user friendly"
opearing systems. Worst of all, some of these alleged "computer scientists" manage to get degrees without
ever learning FORTRAN! Are we destined to become an industry of Unix hackers and PASCAL
programmers?
From my experience, I can only report that the furure is bright for Real Programmers everywhere. more...

The 1982 Israeli invasion of Lebanon resulted in many dogfights between Syrian and Israeli jet fighters. In the end, the Syrians lost over 80 planes and had a number of SAM batteries knocked out, while the Israelis lost no planes. Sometime later, the Syrian Defense Minister was shopping for weapons in Moscow. His host, the Soviet Defense Minister, was embarrassed about the scorecard from Lebanon. He told his Syrian guest, "Take anything you want - our best tanks, rifles, or surface-to-air missiles.""No, no - you don't understand!" the Syrian replied. "Last time you gave us surface-to-air missiles. This time we need surface-to-*jet* missiles!"