WEBVTT 1 00:00:05.240 --> 00:00:09.519 Hey, welcome back to Programmer Story Hour with Uncle Bob 2 00:00:09.640 --> 00:00:13.320 or JavaScript Jabber as we call it every week. 3 00:00:14.599 --> 00:00:17.000 This week on our panel, we have a j O'Neal. 4 00:00:17.960 --> 00:00:19.839 Yo yah yoh, come that you live. 5 00:00:19.839 --> 00:00:26.000 From the now with plywood paneling shed or like I said, 6 00:00:26.000 --> 00:00:28.039 a drywall. I got someplywood from a friend who is 7 00:00:28.079 --> 00:00:29.960 dumping it nice. 8 00:00:30.519 --> 00:00:32.000 We also have Dan Shapere. 9 00:00:32.399 --> 00:00:33.600 Hello from Tel Aviv. 10 00:00:34.600 --> 00:00:37.280 I'm Charles max Wood from Top End Devs. And this 11 00:00:37.359 --> 00:00:39.200 week we have a special guest. As I said before, 12 00:00:39.200 --> 00:00:41.960 we got Uncle Bob here. So Bob, welcome back. 13 00:00:42.439 --> 00:00:44.439 Thank you so much. Good to be back. 14 00:00:45.960 --> 00:00:48.439 So I was going to ask you what's new, but 15 00:00:49.719 --> 00:00:51.960 I have to say Pearson reached out to me about 16 00:00:52.479 --> 00:00:55.880 reviewing Clean Code, a new edition of Clean Code, So 17 00:00:55.920 --> 00:00:57.359 it looks like that's going to be a thing. 18 00:00:57.920 --> 00:01:00.640 Yeah. I'm in the midst of the final reviews of 19 00:01:00.679 --> 00:01:03.479 that now, so it should be going into production within 20 00:01:03.520 --> 00:01:07.000 another month. And then you know that that process takes 21 00:01:07.000 --> 00:01:11.000 about three or four months. So even cleaner Code end 22 00:01:11.040 --> 00:01:12.040 of the year, what's that? 23 00:01:12.599 --> 00:01:15.799 Even cleaner Code, we can only pray. 24 00:01:16.079 --> 00:01:20.879 Clean Code second Edition. I tried to play with other titles, 25 00:01:20.879 --> 00:01:26.120 but the publisher was very adamant be Clean Code second edition. 26 00:01:26.359 --> 00:01:28.519 I think it's easier to sell if you keep the title. 27 00:01:28.719 --> 00:01:32.359 It's you know, yeah, we're not supposed to. That's that's 28 00:01:32.359 --> 00:01:35.040 not the topic of our conversation. But I've got to ask. 29 00:01:35.159 --> 00:01:40.280 I mean, the Clean Code principles seem pretty kind of universal, almost, 30 00:01:40.519 --> 00:01:43.040 so why do we need a second edition? 31 00:01:45.040 --> 00:01:51.599 Oh heavens, I did say, story our go for it, Bob. 32 00:01:53.680 --> 00:01:56.000 For the longest time, I thought, you know, I'm done. 33 00:01:56.120 --> 00:01:58.519 I don't. I've never done a second edition of anything. 34 00:01:59.159 --> 00:02:01.480 Usually when I write something, I think, Okay, I said it, 35 00:02:01.519 --> 00:02:04.200 I don't need to say it again. And for the 36 00:02:04.239 --> 00:02:06.519 longest time I thought that would be the case with 37 00:02:06.640 --> 00:02:12.240 Clean Code. But the Clean Code became so controversial. There 38 00:02:12.240 --> 00:02:18.800 were so many misinterpretations and misrepresentations and you know, errors 39 00:02:18.800 --> 00:02:21.280 on my part where I said things that could be 40 00:02:21.639 --> 00:02:23.919 taken in the wrong way that I thought, you know, 41 00:02:25.319 --> 00:02:29.120 maybe it's time to dust that thing off and see 42 00:02:29.159 --> 00:02:32.360 if there isn't something I would say differently. And then 43 00:02:32.439 --> 00:02:35.080 as I was doing that, I thought, you know, there's 44 00:02:35.159 --> 00:02:37.759 all this new stuff, there's all this AI stuff. There's 45 00:02:37.800 --> 00:02:41.280 always you know, co Pilot and rock and all that stuff. 46 00:02:41.360 --> 00:02:45.599 How does that play in. And besides that, there's languages. 47 00:02:45.080 --> 00:02:48.840 That I should probably explore, like go and and I thought, okay, fine, 48 00:02:48.919 --> 00:02:56.039 let's let's do a top to bottom rewrite, incorporating some 49 00:02:56.240 --> 00:03:00.599 of the original chapters with a lot of change and 50 00:03:00.759 --> 00:03:02.960 just a whole new bunch of new chapters. 51 00:03:03.479 --> 00:03:07.599 The overall message is, of course the same, but the 52 00:03:07.800 --> 00:03:10.560 way I say it in the examples that I pose 53 00:03:10.719 --> 00:03:15.439 and some of the nuances have shifted a rather significant amount, 54 00:03:15.520 --> 00:03:18.719 so I'm happy with it. I also decided to add 55 00:03:18.759 --> 00:03:21.479 a whole bunch of other stuff, like design principles and 56 00:03:21.520 --> 00:03:26.680 design patterns. It's kind of like, Okay, everything I've learned 57 00:03:26.680 --> 00:03:29.439 over the last ten years, let's kind of funnel it 58 00:03:29.439 --> 00:03:33.759 into this book and see what happens. So that's why 59 00:03:33.919 --> 00:03:37.840 there is a second edition. Not least of all of 60 00:03:37.840 --> 00:03:39.840 that is that my publisher said, you know, you should 61 00:03:39.840 --> 00:03:43.719 write a second edition. I thought, okay, probably a good idea. 62 00:03:45.400 --> 00:03:50.319 You mentioned the fact that you cover new program additional 63 00:03:50.360 --> 00:03:56.759 programming languages in the new edition. I'm curious in that context, 64 00:03:57.719 --> 00:04:01.719 how to what extent does the choice of the programming 65 00:04:01.800 --> 00:04:08.360 language impact the meaning, I guess or the consequence of 66 00:04:08.439 --> 00:04:12.919 the code being clean, Like would you apply the same 67 00:04:12.960 --> 00:04:19.199 principles in order to achieve clean code in different programming languages. 68 00:04:19.920 --> 00:04:23.319 And that is one of the points of the second edition, 69 00:04:24.120 --> 00:04:27.879 which is that the programming language doesn't matter much at all. 70 00:04:28.680 --> 00:04:30.759 I'm going to show you an example in Python. I'm 71 00:04:30.759 --> 00:04:33.040 going to show you an example in Ruby. I'll do 72 00:04:33.120 --> 00:04:37.759 an enclosure. I'll do one in Java. An NC doesn't 73 00:04:37.759 --> 00:04:41.240 seem to make an awful lot of difference. There are 74 00:04:41.560 --> 00:04:46.000 little quibbles that you can make. Some languages want the 75 00:04:46.120 --> 00:04:48.879 order of the functions inverted. You know, if you're working 76 00:04:48.920 --> 00:04:51.920 in Python or if you're working in closure. They want 77 00:04:51.959 --> 00:04:55.800 low level things stated before high level things I whereas 78 00:04:55.839 --> 00:04:57.560 in Java you can turn it around in a way 79 00:04:57.600 --> 00:05:02.160 that makes more sense. But o are all the message 80 00:05:02.199 --> 00:05:06.560 of the book applies to all of those languages, and 81 00:05:06.560 --> 00:05:09.519 and in the second edition I tried to demonstrate that 82 00:05:10.040 --> 00:05:12.720 by just changing language from chapter to chapter to chapter. 83 00:05:13.959 --> 00:05:15.759 Yeah, I remember, with the help of co. 84 00:05:15.759 --> 00:05:18.600 Pilot, by the way, because I'm not a Python programmer, 85 00:05:18.879 --> 00:05:21.040 so I fire up co pilot and I get a 86 00:05:21.079 --> 00:05:23.720 lot of help. It was, it was It was pretty 87 00:05:23.759 --> 00:05:28.079 interesting to watch these ais throw a code at me 88 00:05:28.199 --> 00:05:30.279 that I could review and then think you know that's 89 00:05:30.519 --> 00:05:34.480 maybe not so bad or in more cases like I 90 00:05:34.519 --> 00:05:35.519 think I could do better. 91 00:05:37.279 --> 00:05:39.240 Very cool. We're looking forward to that coming out. 92 00:05:40.439 --> 00:05:44.040 One thing that I hear is like the number one 93 00:05:44.439 --> 00:05:49.759 criticism that I hear, and I think this is not accurate, 94 00:05:50.160 --> 00:05:53.680 but I want to know. People say, oh, or you 95 00:05:53.680 --> 00:05:56.040 could do it Uncle Bob style and only have three 96 00:05:56.160 --> 00:06:01.160 or four lines in a function. Is that is that true? 97 00:06:01.240 --> 00:06:04.720 Or is that just like a misquote or a a 98 00:06:04.839 --> 00:06:07.600 perversion of something you said? Like I know that a 99 00:06:07.639 --> 00:06:11.240 lot of demo code examples to do apps whatever. Yeah, 100 00:06:11.399 --> 00:06:13.120 like you end up you know, if you were going 101 00:06:13.160 --> 00:06:16.120 to enterprise it, and yeah, then you're gonna end up 102 00:06:16.120 --> 00:06:17.519 with a bunch of things that are three or four 103 00:06:17.560 --> 00:06:21.720 lines long, don't do anything meaningful. But what what is 104 00:06:21.759 --> 00:06:27.240 your actual advice on function size or grouping of logic? 105 00:06:28.319 --> 00:06:32.199 Actual? My actual advice there is to keep it very small. 106 00:06:32.439 --> 00:06:36.079 I like small functions, and you know how small, well, 107 00:06:36.600 --> 00:06:40.759 three four or five, six, seven lines something in that range. 108 00:06:41.000 --> 00:06:42.959 I don't like to see twenty lines. I don't like 109 00:06:43.040 --> 00:06:51.439 to see thirty. The the controversy is, you know, two 110 00:06:51.480 --> 00:06:54.959 to three lines. So bun Kebob says, everything's got to 111 00:06:55.000 --> 00:06:57.160 be two to three or three to four or whatever 112 00:06:57.360 --> 00:07:02.040 number they quote. And that's an example of people who 113 00:07:02.079 --> 00:07:03.160 did not read the book. 114 00:07:05.480 --> 00:07:11.439 In that context. Though some programming languages are more condensed 115 00:07:11.480 --> 00:07:16.480 than others. Yes, you know, I know that you like closure. 116 00:07:16.680 --> 00:07:22.240 Closure is pretty dense. So three lines of Closure could 117 00:07:22.319 --> 00:07:24.920 probably achieve a lot more than three lines of Java. 118 00:07:26.160 --> 00:07:28.560 Three lines of Java. Two of those lines are open, 119 00:07:28.800 --> 00:07:32.759 open curlies, and close curlies, so you're basically left with 120 00:07:32.839 --> 00:07:34.839 one line that is Java. 121 00:07:35.319 --> 00:07:39.000 Certainly true, It is certainly true that that Closure is 122 00:07:39.079 --> 00:07:42.199 much denser than Java, and yet it is much harder 123 00:07:42.240 --> 00:07:46.519 in closure to make small functions. And that's just because 124 00:07:46.519 --> 00:07:49.959 of the functional style and the fact that you need 125 00:07:50.000 --> 00:07:53.560 to set a bunch of variables up front and then 126 00:07:53.920 --> 00:07:56.399 and then operate them at a lower place, and it's 127 00:07:56.560 --> 00:08:02.399 very hard to separate those things out as independent functions. So, 128 00:08:02.959 --> 00:08:05.199 just just a quirk of the language, you end up 129 00:08:05.199 --> 00:08:09.199 with larger functions inclosure, even though those even though the 130 00:08:09.279 --> 00:08:10.160 language is denser. 131 00:08:12.759 --> 00:08:19.720 So do you have like a general rule of how 132 00:08:19.759 --> 00:08:23.680 to determine what belongs together? Because I think line limit 133 00:08:23.839 --> 00:08:25.439 to me, to me personally, I don't think line limit 134 00:08:25.480 --> 00:08:28.040 makes a lot of sense because the line limit is arbitrary. 135 00:08:28.040 --> 00:08:30.720 Like for me, I don't like to use comments. I 136 00:08:30.800 --> 00:08:32.519 put everything in a variable. So if I'm going to 137 00:08:32.600 --> 00:08:35.879 do a mathematical operation where I'm gonna, you know, add 138 00:08:36.039 --> 00:08:38.879 days of the week and multiply by hours or whatever, 139 00:08:38.960 --> 00:08:41.399 I'll actually write that out line by line, so that 140 00:08:41.600 --> 00:08:44.879 instead of commenting this is taking this to make that 141 00:08:45.039 --> 00:08:50.399 because this number is special, I'll just var special number 142 00:08:50.480 --> 00:08:54.799 equals you know, and and that way that the variables 143 00:08:54.799 --> 00:08:57.519 declare themselves. So a function that somebody else would have 144 00:08:57.559 --> 00:09:02.960 that would be or a operation like I break statements 145 00:09:03.000 --> 00:09:05.919 down right, so don't I don't necessarily find line numbers 146 00:09:05.919 --> 00:09:08.360 in of themselves to be meaningful. Other than that, you've 147 00:09:08.360 --> 00:09:10.159 got to be able to see it on a page, 148 00:09:10.679 --> 00:09:13.440 Like when you're looking at a block of code, generally 149 00:09:13.440 --> 00:09:15.320 you should be able to see the whole block of code. 150 00:09:15.320 --> 00:09:18.240 If it extends beyond what you can easily see, or 151 00:09:18.240 --> 00:09:20.320 you have to make your font size really small, then 152 00:09:20.600 --> 00:09:22.639 you know it's too much context in the brain. 153 00:09:23.320 --> 00:09:29.120 I've got these I don't make my font size too small. 154 00:09:29.399 --> 00:09:29.679 Yeah. 155 00:09:29.759 --> 00:09:33.759 But on the other hand, and I think that there's 156 00:09:33.799 --> 00:09:35.960 the general case versus the exceptional case and this might 157 00:09:35.960 --> 00:09:38.279 be the exceptional case. But if it's like a parser, 158 00:09:38.919 --> 00:09:42.879 I often find that my functions are way longer, longer 159 00:09:42.919 --> 00:09:45.279 than I like them to be, because it's like, well, 160 00:09:45.679 --> 00:09:50.600 one unit of logic for parsing, this thing is just 161 00:09:50.679 --> 00:09:53.879 this much logic or transforming if it's like a parser 162 00:09:53.960 --> 00:09:54.840 or a transformer. 163 00:09:57.639 --> 00:10:00.440 Yeah, yeah, So the line limit is always the way 164 00:10:00.480 --> 00:10:02.879 to look at it. It's because it's not a line 165 00:10:02.960 --> 00:10:06.080 limit that you're really going for. And in the book, 166 00:10:06.639 --> 00:10:09.279 and in the new book especially, I write a whole 167 00:10:09.360 --> 00:10:11.240 chapter about this in the new book. But in the 168 00:10:11.279 --> 00:10:15.360 old book, the rule was a function should do one thing, 169 00:10:16.279 --> 00:10:19.159 and how do you know that it's doing one thing? 170 00:10:19.200 --> 00:10:20.279 How do you remove the. 171 00:10:20.279 --> 00:10:24.919 Objective or the subjective idea of what one thing is? 172 00:10:25.039 --> 00:10:27.600 And my answer to that is is that if you 173 00:10:27.720 --> 00:10:33.080 can use the extract method refactoring inside a function to 174 00:10:33.159 --> 00:10:37.639 pull another function out of it, you probably should, and 175 00:10:37.679 --> 00:10:41.159 then give that function a nice name, and those two 176 00:10:41.200 --> 00:10:43.399 functions will then do one thing. If you can take 177 00:10:43.440 --> 00:10:46.879 one function and split it in two with extract method, 178 00:10:47.639 --> 00:10:50.200 then you then that then probably you should, and those 179 00:10:50.200 --> 00:10:52.759 two functions will be smaller. Of course, they'll both have 180 00:10:52.879 --> 00:10:53.399 nice names. 181 00:10:54.080 --> 00:10:59.639 That's that's if you don't know what to name your function. 182 00:11:01.000 --> 00:11:04.639 If your function name is dou stuff, you definitely need 183 00:11:04.720 --> 00:11:06.039 to break your function down. 184 00:11:06.240 --> 00:11:11.960 I literally want had to refactor code that had in 185 00:11:12.000 --> 00:11:15.480 it one through in it ten oh jee. 186 00:11:18.240 --> 00:11:22.279 Yeah, but that's useful. But they kept the line rule. 187 00:11:22.480 --> 00:11:25.159 The thing that we're kind of circling around here, at 188 00:11:25.240 --> 00:11:28.559 least the way that I approach it is I like 189 00:11:28.679 --> 00:11:30.200 everything at the same abstraction level. 190 00:11:30.240 --> 00:11:30.559 For one. 191 00:11:30.720 --> 00:11:32.840 Yeah, so that's one rule that I follow, right, And 192 00:11:32.879 --> 00:11:35.879 so if I can say this takes these steps A, D, C, 193 00:11:36.080 --> 00:11:38.080 D E, F right, and I can you know, I 194 00:11:38.080 --> 00:11:41.080 can name the steps, then then that's usually what my 195 00:11:41.080 --> 00:11:43.720 function looks like, right, or my method or whatever. And 196 00:11:43.759 --> 00:11:45.600 then and then I have those somewhere else, right, And 197 00:11:45.639 --> 00:11:47.399 so then and then those break down the same way. 198 00:11:47.399 --> 00:11:49.000 They're just the next layer of abstraction. 199 00:11:49.440 --> 00:11:52.600 But then the other thing is is that if typically 200 00:11:52.639 --> 00:11:55.559 if I have some big long function like AJ's talking 201 00:11:55.559 --> 00:11:59.440 about with like a parser, usually there are different stages 202 00:11:59.559 --> 00:12:03.399 or steps or functionalities in there that I need to 203 00:12:03.440 --> 00:12:05.759 go through, and so I can break all that out too. 204 00:12:06.480 --> 00:12:09.080 And so in a lot of cases, I don't typically 205 00:12:09.080 --> 00:12:12.000 find very many cases in any language that I've written, 206 00:12:12.480 --> 00:12:17.799 where I don't wind up with just some somewhat shorter method. 207 00:12:18.120 --> 00:12:20.720 The only time it gets particularly long is if you 208 00:12:20.759 --> 00:12:23.759 have a case statement. And I hate case statements because 209 00:12:23.879 --> 00:12:26.720 it adds the line every other time. If if the 210 00:12:26.759 --> 00:12:29.080 case case, then do this case, then do this case, 211 00:12:29.120 --> 00:12:32.480 than do this or if els if elsif else if 212 00:12:32.480 --> 00:12:34.440 elsif which is also gross. 213 00:12:35.399 --> 00:12:39.320 But beyond that. Yeah, typically you can break it out into. 214 00:12:39.200 --> 00:12:44.919 Multiple I prefer and direction over ifs and and switches. 215 00:12:45.440 --> 00:12:48.000 By the way, we have a question from the audience 216 00:12:48.879 --> 00:12:53.120 closure from Venicius. I think I'm pronouncing his name correctly. 217 00:12:53.120 --> 00:12:56.879 I hope closure developers value recursion more than any other 218 00:12:57.120 --> 00:13:00.200 How does recursion impact clean code? Well, I think that 219 00:13:00.279 --> 00:13:05.759 closure developers don't have a choice except to use recursion 220 00:13:05.799 --> 00:13:09.000 if they want to have to make to create loops. 221 00:13:10.320 --> 00:13:12.200 You know, one of the people you didn't talk about 222 00:13:12.200 --> 00:13:17.080 in your book, or a few people were Church And 223 00:13:17.240 --> 00:13:19.360 also I forget the name of the two guys that 224 00:13:19.480 --> 00:13:20.320 created lisp. 225 00:13:20.840 --> 00:13:24.000 Oh, yeah, we're here to talk about we programmers. 226 00:13:28.039 --> 00:13:29.879 Go go ahead and answer this question, Bob, and then 227 00:13:30.120 --> 00:13:32.159 we'll move on and move on to story hour. 228 00:13:32.600 --> 00:13:34.879 Well, I mean, I mean Dan is right. If you're 229 00:13:34.960 --> 00:13:37.320 going to use the functional language, you have no choice 230 00:13:37.360 --> 00:13:41.720 but to use recursion. Recursion is a the only way 231 00:13:41.919 --> 00:13:45.279 you can do loops in a in a functional language. 232 00:13:46.399 --> 00:13:51.360 How does it impact clean code? It doesn't. Good. Good 233 00:13:51.399 --> 00:13:55.639 expressive code can be expressed either with iterative loops or 234 00:13:55.679 --> 00:14:00.600 with recursion, so there's no real impact there at all. 235 00:14:01.120 --> 00:14:04.159 The impact that closure brings to the rules of clean 236 00:14:04.240 --> 00:14:12.960 code is that the act of creating intermediate variables is 237 00:14:13.159 --> 00:14:18.559 very difficult to extract out into other functions because in closure, 238 00:14:18.600 --> 00:14:21.039 when you create an intermediate variable, it is in the 239 00:14:21.080 --> 00:14:23.639 scope of your function, and there's no way to get 240 00:14:23.679 --> 00:14:27.720 it out without doing some nasty trick like creating an 241 00:14:27.759 --> 00:14:31.759 atom or something. And okay, probably don't want to do 242 00:14:31.799 --> 00:14:32.399 that too. 243 00:14:32.200 --> 00:14:36.200 Often because you don't want side effects, all right right now. 244 00:14:36.360 --> 00:14:38.840 I mean, you can manage those side effects by creating 245 00:14:38.879 --> 00:14:42.600 an atom and then making sure you don't overwrite the 246 00:14:42.720 --> 00:14:45.519 data that you stick in there. So in that sense, 247 00:14:45.559 --> 00:14:49.480 you probably could pull out those functions. And I've played 248 00:14:49.519 --> 00:14:51.919 with that technique a few times, but it's always ugly. 249 00:14:52.600 --> 00:14:56.480 So then I wind up with functions that are fifteen 250 00:14:56.600 --> 00:14:59.200 lines long, and I look at them and go boy, 251 00:14:59.240 --> 00:15:01.799 I wish I could pull lice things apart, but there's 252 00:15:01.840 --> 00:15:07.559 no real good way so far, enclosure that I have accepted. 253 00:15:08.840 --> 00:15:11.759 Also, at the end of the day, it's not about achieving, 254 00:15:11.879 --> 00:15:14.840 like you said, it's not about achieving some magic number. 255 00:15:14.919 --> 00:15:18.120 It's trying to make your I guess it would be 256 00:15:18.159 --> 00:15:20.840 try to make your functions as short as possible, but 257 00:15:21.159 --> 00:15:22.159 no shorter. 258 00:15:22.720 --> 00:15:26.360 Well, yeah, given the constraints of the language. 259 00:15:26.519 --> 00:15:28.600 And it's not easy either. 260 00:15:28.639 --> 00:15:31.960 Any people kind of conflate length and complexity or length 261 00:15:32.000 --> 00:15:36.799 and difficulty, and you know it can and can't sometimes. 262 00:15:37.519 --> 00:15:39.320 But was it Mark Twain that said I didn't have 263 00:15:39.360 --> 00:15:40.919 time to write you a short letter, so I wrote 264 00:15:40.960 --> 00:15:41.519 you a long one. 265 00:15:41.919 --> 00:15:45.279 It was Voltaire, it was somebody important. 266 00:15:45.360 --> 00:15:47.600 But the point is is that it takes a lot 267 00:15:47.600 --> 00:15:50.759 of time to get right, to really get things that 268 00:15:50.799 --> 00:15:53.799 they're in the right place, so that you have something 269 00:15:53.879 --> 00:15:58.399 like that that's easy to put together in your head. Anyway, 270 00:15:58.960 --> 00:16:00.799 let's get into we program I think we did this 271 00:16:00.879 --> 00:16:04.240 last time when we were talking about your your other project, 272 00:16:04.600 --> 00:16:06.840 where we went off on we programmers for about twenty 273 00:16:06.879 --> 00:16:09.080 minutes and then it's like, we're here to talk about 274 00:16:09.120 --> 00:16:12.559 this other thing. So which is great because it makes 275 00:16:12.559 --> 00:16:16.879 it fun to talk about. But yeah, so I'm kind 276 00:16:16.879 --> 00:16:20.639 of curious as we get in, what's your favorite part 277 00:16:20.759 --> 00:16:22.879 or story or whatever of the book, and can you 278 00:16:22.960 --> 00:16:28.559 kind of give us a little bit of the story there. 279 00:16:28.679 --> 00:16:31.919 My favorite story in there, well, there's a lot of 280 00:16:32.120 --> 00:16:35.240 a lot of stories that I really like, but my 281 00:16:35.919 --> 00:16:42.039 favorite story in there might be the story of John Bacchus, 282 00:16:43.600 --> 00:16:48.639 because here's a guy who was a complete and air 283 00:16:48.639 --> 00:16:51.759 did well. It didn't have a great family life growing up, 284 00:16:53.279 --> 00:16:56.600 kind of dumped on school, didn't care about school because 285 00:16:56.600 --> 00:16:59.399 he's too damn smart, right, and you know, everybody knows 286 00:16:59.399 --> 00:17:02.039 that kid. It was so damn smart that they didn't 287 00:17:02.039 --> 00:17:04.640 even he didn't even try, right. School was just so 288 00:17:04.799 --> 00:17:08.559 damn boring. The hell with it, and he got drafted 289 00:17:09.000 --> 00:17:11.920 towards the end of World War two. Fortunately right at 290 00:17:11.920 --> 00:17:18.799 the right time. He got drafted, and the army saw this, 291 00:17:18.799 --> 00:17:22.440 this ne'er do well kid, and ran him through an 292 00:17:22.480 --> 00:17:26.359 aptitude test and it blew their socks off, and so 293 00:17:26.440 --> 00:17:28.559 they said, you need to become an engineer, and they 294 00:17:28.559 --> 00:17:32.240 put him into engineering school. Well that was too boring 295 00:17:32.279 --> 00:17:34.279 for him. He did extremely well, of course, but it 296 00:17:34.319 --> 00:17:36.359 was too boring for him, and he just spent his 297 00:17:36.440 --> 00:17:40.519 time at nightclubs and stuff like that. And the army 298 00:17:40.720 --> 00:17:43.279 goes this right at the end of World War Two, right, 299 00:17:43.400 --> 00:17:46.319 so the army says, you know, this guy's so damn smart. 300 00:17:46.319 --> 00:17:50.839 They put him into medical school. He could become a doctor. 301 00:17:51.359 --> 00:17:55.119 And that was a bit more challenging, and Bacchus kind 302 00:17:55.160 --> 00:17:58.920 of enjoyed it, but kind of didn't. And then all 303 00:17:58.960 --> 00:18:02.240 of a sudden, the world was over and he had 304 00:18:03.160 --> 00:18:05.799 he was out of the army and he just dropped 305 00:18:05.839 --> 00:18:08.279 out of the school and said, yeah, the hell with that. 306 00:18:08.480 --> 00:18:11.680 And he he built himself a nice little Wi Fi system. 307 00:18:11.960 --> 00:18:14.759 Oh, by the way, that's not Wi Fi Hi Fi 308 00:18:15.400 --> 00:18:18.559 back in the you know, in the fifties, nice sound 309 00:18:18.640 --> 00:18:23.119 system for his record player. Still only half of the 310 00:18:23.160 --> 00:18:25.880 people in the world know what I'm talking about. He 311 00:18:25.960 --> 00:18:28.359 built that, and he dabbled around a little bit and 312 00:18:28.359 --> 00:18:31.799 really didn't get any jobs. And then a friend of 313 00:18:31.839 --> 00:18:37.559 his said, you know, you should see this really cool 314 00:18:37.880 --> 00:18:41.880 thing that's down in one of the streets of New 315 00:18:41.960 --> 00:18:46.000 York City at the IBM building. And he goes wandering 316 00:18:46.039 --> 00:18:48.200 over there and he looks in the window and and 317 00:18:48.319 --> 00:18:51.720 the at the IBM building. Thomas J. Watson, the guy 318 00:18:51.759 --> 00:18:56.880 who founded IBM, had put in the display window the 319 00:18:57.160 --> 00:19:02.519 world's second computer, big computer, right, the selective I can't 320 00:19:02.559 --> 00:19:07.240 remember the name of it. This gigantic machine, mostly electro mechanical, 321 00:19:07.359 --> 00:19:12.880 couple of vacuum tubes, paper tape everywhere. This massive machine 322 00:19:12.880 --> 00:19:17.079 fills the room. It's got this really cool front panel, 323 00:19:17.160 --> 00:19:20.480 you know, a Star Trek front panel. Lights are blinking. 324 00:19:20.680 --> 00:19:24.400 If you go inside, it's clicking away like crazy. And 325 00:19:24.720 --> 00:19:28.279 Bacchus goes, oh, yeah, that's kind of cool. And he 326 00:19:28.400 --> 00:19:32.319 asks for a tour, and the person giving him a 327 00:19:32.359 --> 00:19:37.359 tour I think must have smelled something. I mean, Bacchus 328 00:19:37.039 --> 00:19:42.039 was in a very informal garb shall we say, but 329 00:19:42.200 --> 00:19:45.960 must have smelled something about Bacchus's intelligence, because the tour 330 00:19:46.039 --> 00:19:50.079 guide brought him up to the department head, and the 331 00:19:50.119 --> 00:19:52.480 department head gave him an aptitude test and hired him 332 00:19:52.519 --> 00:19:58.319 on the spot, and he became the project leader of 333 00:19:58.400 --> 00:20:01.240 the Fortran project that gave us the Fortran language way 334 00:20:01.279 --> 00:20:04.000 back in the fifties. That's that is one of the 335 00:20:04.000 --> 00:20:11.720 most interesting intellectual rags to intellectual riches stories in the book. 336 00:20:11.759 --> 00:20:14.359 It's a guy that you would never expect to do 337 00:20:14.480 --> 00:20:20.240 well at anything and winds up delivering this wonderful thing 338 00:20:20.240 --> 00:20:21.559 to the world at that time. 339 00:20:22.440 --> 00:20:27.480 So I have to ask, I mean, it's the book. 340 00:20:28.319 --> 00:20:30.839 I've not read it, but I've read excerpts. I've not 341 00:20:30.920 --> 00:20:32.799 read it yet. That's put it this way, but I've 342 00:20:32.799 --> 00:20:35.599 read excerpts. And I also saw some of the stuff 343 00:20:35.640 --> 00:20:39.440 that you put out, and there are a huge no, 344 00:20:39.640 --> 00:20:44.240 there's a large number of amazing characters and crazy stories 345 00:20:44.279 --> 00:20:48.400 about them. How did you decide who to put in 346 00:20:48.440 --> 00:20:50.799 and leave out? And how did you get all the 347 00:20:50.880 --> 00:20:54.359 information about the ones that I decided to put in. 348 00:20:58.000 --> 00:21:02.519 It's how did I decide who to leave in and 349 00:21:02.559 --> 00:21:06.200 who to leave out? Old Bob Seeger song right. There 350 00:21:06.200 --> 00:21:07.799 were a few that were obvious that I had to 351 00:21:07.799 --> 00:21:10.599 put in. I had to put Babbage in because the 352 00:21:10.640 --> 00:21:13.880 book wouldn't even start properly without Babbage. And you have 353 00:21:13.960 --> 00:21:17.200 to put Grace Hopper because she was kind of like 354 00:21:17.240 --> 00:21:20.079 the first And if you're not talking about touring, you're 355 00:21:20.119 --> 00:21:23.000 not writing a book about software history. So you've got 356 00:21:23.000 --> 00:21:26.039 to have touring. And if you bring in touring, you 357 00:21:26.200 --> 00:21:33.519 have to talk about the math. Dave the Hilbert Albert. 358 00:21:33.599 --> 00:21:36.519 Thank you. I knew it starting with an H. You 359 00:21:36.599 --> 00:21:38.400 have to talk about David Hilbert, and you have to 360 00:21:38.400 --> 00:21:41.559 talk about John von Neuman. So those were kind of obvious. 361 00:21:41.799 --> 00:21:47.119 That's an obvious progression. And then you know, why wouldn't 362 00:21:47.160 --> 00:21:52.599 you talk about the three authors of C Why wouldn't 363 00:21:52.640 --> 00:21:56.680 you talk about Dennis Ritchie and Ken Thompson and Brian Kernahan. 364 00:21:57.480 --> 00:21:59.599 In fact, you're gonna want to end with that one 365 00:22:00.000 --> 00:22:04.480 because that's kind of where modern history begins. Yeah, and 366 00:22:04.480 --> 00:22:07.440 then in the midst of all that, there are these milestones, 367 00:22:07.480 --> 00:22:10.839 and most of those milestones I just uncovered by accident, 368 00:22:10.960 --> 00:22:14.920 like the whole story of John Kemeny, the father of Basic. 369 00:22:15.359 --> 00:22:19.079 What an interesting story that was. No, everybody knows Basic, 370 00:22:19.200 --> 00:22:20.680 hardly anybody knows the. 371 00:22:22.359 --> 00:22:25.400 You're making a You're making an assumption that's based on 372 00:22:25.440 --> 00:22:29.640 our age. Well, I have to tell you that I 373 00:22:29.799 --> 00:22:33.079 speak with the developers that I work with these days, 374 00:22:33.680 --> 00:22:37.000 and you know, sometimes the topic of the first what's 375 00:22:37.039 --> 00:22:39.960 your first programming language? Comes up and I say Basic 376 00:22:40.039 --> 00:22:46.440 and they say, what ye like people today? People today 377 00:22:46.480 --> 00:22:49.359 don't know about Basic. I mean, you know, maybe they 378 00:22:49.400 --> 00:22:53.319 do because of Microsoft. You know, stuff like VBA. But 379 00:22:53.839 --> 00:22:56.359 other than that, they probably don't know what basic is. 380 00:22:56.400 --> 00:22:59.000 And you know what, that's not such a bad thing. 381 00:23:02.759 --> 00:23:05.279 Basic almost spoiled me as a programmer. 382 00:23:05.599 --> 00:23:10.039 Oh well, you know you didn't write Cobaal then, because 383 00:23:10.039 --> 00:23:13.440 that would have spoiled you as a programmer. Spoiled me 384 00:23:13.480 --> 00:23:14.960 as a programmer for a day or two. 385 00:23:15.279 --> 00:23:18.720 Well, you know the story about Ellen Kay and Grace Hopper. 386 00:23:20.079 --> 00:23:22.960 Please please tell me the story. 387 00:23:23.519 --> 00:23:28.640 Well, I recall reading it somewhere that he was walking 388 00:23:28.680 --> 00:23:32.200 around the university. I guess it would be Stanford. I 389 00:23:32.240 --> 00:23:35.519 think I may be wrong. Maybe it was Berkeley. I 390 00:23:35.559 --> 00:23:39.799 don't recall where he taught, But anyway, he sees a 391 00:23:39.799 --> 00:23:43.359 group of people and he walks over and it's because 392 00:23:44.119 --> 00:23:47.880 Grace Hopper was there and they were like showing her around. 393 00:23:48.440 --> 00:23:52.640 And the story is that they introduced them and they said, 394 00:23:53.640 --> 00:23:58.240 this is Grace Hopper. She created Cobal, And he said, oh, 395 00:23:58.319 --> 00:24:04.079 I'm sorry. 396 00:24:04.680 --> 00:24:09.000 Yeah, I am not kind to Cobal in my book. 397 00:24:10.640 --> 00:24:14.200 I'm very kind to Grace Hopper because I think I 398 00:24:14.240 --> 00:24:17.920 think she was a remarkable person. But oh yeah, for sure, God, 399 00:24:17.960 --> 00:24:21.880 I hated Cobol. I spent about three months writing Cobal 400 00:24:21.920 --> 00:24:24.920 when I was nineteen years old. It was not a 401 00:24:24.960 --> 00:24:27.839