The Story of Mel

59 points by drmorr 20 hours ago on lobsters | 16 comments

[OP] drmorr | 20 hours ago

I'm sure many folks have seen this before, but I think this is maybe the first time I came across it and thought it was refreshing and delightful. Maybe others will find it similarly so, even if you've seen it in the past.

edit it looks like this has been posted here before but most recently 8 years ago according to my search

masklinn | 19 hours ago

It’s one of the classics alongside the 500 mile email, OpenOffice does not print on Thursdays, etc… https://beza1e1.tuxen.de/lore/index.html has collected a few

WilhelmVonWeiner | 18 hours ago

The 500 mile email makes me laugh every time it pops into my head. What a wonderful story.

BD103 | 7 hours ago

What a cool website! I particularly enjoyed In the Middle of Large Print Jobs

hoistbypetard | 20 hours ago

You might also enjoy these little articles about the programmer in the story now that you've seen it.

Ambroisie | 15 hours ago

On top of the replies linking to other classics, I'll share this presentation by Bryan Cantrill about oral tradition in software engineering: https://youtu.be/4PaWFYm0kEw.

JaDogg | 19 hours ago

Indeed. In the age of AI where our passion is twisted and force fed to us this is refreshing.

lproven | 15 hours ago

it looks like this has been posted here before but most recently 8 years ago according to my search

It was 2 months ago, here:

https://lobste.rs/s/znejf4/modern_app

It's like the New Hope to https://thedailywtf.com/articles/the-inner-json-effect 's Phantom Menace

lorddimwit | 12 hours ago

I have actually met Ed Nather, the author of the story. Nice guy.

ucirello | 9 hours ago

malxau | 8 hours ago

atmosx | 10 hours ago

Real Programmers write in FORTRAN.

Wait... I thought real programmers used punch cards. Meh, kids these days don't know.

Both! According to https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Computer_programming_in_the_punched_card_era

I’m not old enough to have used either.

atmosx | 6 hours ago

I’m not old enough to have used either.

Me either, I was j/k ofc :-)

Honestly I wish I was, as I would be closer to retirement 🤣