call me by name, or call me by value

The old saw about “real” programmers versus the rest (known as “quiche eaters”) was originally summarised beautifully in the classic letter to the editor of Datamation in July 1983 entitled “real programmers don’t use pascal”.

Similar religious (i.e. irrational, but deeply held) positions are taken around various other “lifestyle” choices, such as the equally classic emacs vs vi argument. (For the record I’m in the vi camp – you know it makes sense). So I was delighted to stumble across this from xkcd.

real_programmers_cartoon

Again, my thanks to xkcd.

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