Lou Miller
Posted by RabbitBusiness4205@reddit | learnprogramming | View on Reddit | 51 comments
My name is Lou Miller. In 1955, I believe I'm the oldest living person who programmed (various machine languages, Fortran, Cobol, Pl/1, BASIC, Pascal, PAL, Delta, etc., etc.). I was a Senior year Math major at Penn (U. of P.). I was hired by Univac (Philadelphia, PA and began my programming career. (My first "learning" program was a "bubble sort".) My initial boss there was John Mauchly, coinventor (with Presper Eckart) of the ENIAC and UNIVAC My birthday is April 20, 1933.
Head_Staff_781@reddit
Wow lou miller is a legend
grantrules@reddit
Damn, 5 years older than Donald Knuth! Stay healthy, friend!
RabbitBusiness4205@reddit (OP)
Thank you!
ahazred8vt@reddit
My mom (Dec 1929, still kicking) worked for Bell Labs on the Whirlwind and SAGE systems. LOADLEFT, LOADRIGHT, ADD, SAVERESULT was a four step process. There was a polaroid camera mounted over the register lights, hence "snapshot debugging".
RabbitBusiness4205@reddit (OP)
Read "The Art of Programming" , when it was first published. Great read!
Lou
ScotchTapeConnosieur@reddit
Hi Dad!
Jolly_Current5506@reddit
IckNay??
ScotchTapeConnosieur@reddit
It’s me!
gaspoweredcat@reddit
cool that youve been in the game that long. out of curiosity was was the last/most modern language you learned?
Jolly_Current5506@reddit
Borland Delta - a variant of Pascal. Looked at the Python tutorial.
Lou
phpMartian@reddit
Wow. This is amazing. Thanks for sharing.
I went to college in the early 80s and I used a UNIVAC. I programmed in FORTRAN and PL/1. No punched cards though.
Jolly_Current5506@reddit
Where?
I also went from Fortran to IBM PL/1.
Lou
Downtown-Jacket2430@reddit
Hi Lou!
Would you know what your longest living piece of code is? Is there code you wrote in your career that is still being executed by someone somewhere?
Jolly_Current5506@reddit
I don't know. I created Stargen (Statistical Report Generator - a crosstab front end) at NYS Psychiatric Institutes in the 70's . Might still be used.
I did find a description of my first program - written for the Univac in 1956.
Lou
revonrat@reddit
Lou, what is the single biggest change in the programming profession that you witnessed.
I'm in my early 50s and started programming when I was 10 in the 8-bit era. I have my own answer to the above, but I'm very curious as to your views.
RabbitBusiness4205@reddit (OP)
For me the biggest change was when personal computers arrived and they were in our homes. Before their advent, I would literally have dreams about walking into my living and seeing a main frame there (taking up most of the room).
revonrat@reddit
Lou -- thank you for sharing. I started just a little after you and my answer is, I think, a related to yours.
The first computer I ever put my hands on was at a Bell Telephone office in Marion, Indiana. My dad worked there doing telephone system design. I was five, so I don't remember a whole lot, except that it was a paper teletype. I don't even know if the machine was local or remote. Anyway I was hooked.
Anyway, the biggest change for me is related to the evolution of microcomputers. When I started programming, it wasn't unusual for a software product to be written by one or two people -- after all there was only so much you could fit into an 8-bit micro.
Over time, for me, programming went from a guy or two in a room to large teams. In my youth, I sometimes had difficulty in dealing with people and, if you had told me that software engineering was going to be a team endeavor, I might have chosen something else to do.
I would have been wrong to chose something else, I love what I do and have come to love working in teams and helping others along their careers.
The end of my career is in sight -- I have about 15 years left. And I'm feeling to urge to sum up and pass on what I've learned. I'm still struggling with how to do that.
Anyway, thanks for sharing. Take care.
RabbitBusiness4205@reddit (OP)
On further thought, I would add the Internet (of course, ready access only made possible by the p c).
captainAwesomePants@reddit
I'm gonna say the biggest change for people our age was getting past extreme memory limitations. "Just ship it with an interpreter/static library/copy of Wikipedia/etc" was a massive change.
AgitatedAd7289@reddit
What advice would you give a person starting out with a programming/software engineering career right now?
jbldotexe@reddit
You do realize someone born in 1933 would've retired from professional computer engineering almost 26 years ago right?
RabbitBusiness4205@reddit (OP)
About 21 years ago.I wasn't an engineer. I had my own business and worked until I was 70 (programming finally, in Borland's Delta - a variant of Pascal).
Lou
plasmana@reddit
Do you mean Borland Delphi?
freehugzforeveryone@reddit
Hello Lou! 👋
eduardopy@reddit
wow Lou a legend, im just starting out hopefully one day ill be doing my ama
RabbitBusiness4205@reddit (OP)
Thanks.
Lou
5FT9_AND_BROKE@reddit
Hey Lou, given how much has changed in your lifetime; how much of the programming world is the same, versus different in your eyes?
RabbitBusiness4205@reddit (OP)
In short, computers have shrunk and the internet arrived.
Lou
trysohardidkwhy@reddit
Can you get a job in todays market?
yipeedodaday@reddit
Hey Lou. Would you be willing to do an AMA sometime? I started my career in 1994 after graduating from Uni. I thought my experience went way back but you beat me by 40 years! Bet you still have some punch cards lying around in your study!
RabbitBusiness4205@reddit (OP)
What's an AMA?
Next-Fan-6050@reddit
AMA means "ask me anything". It's a format on Reddit, when a person answers all questions under his post to the people interested about him or specific topic of the person's choosing. Funnily enough, you are actually doing it right now under your post.
RabbitBusiness4205@reddit (OP)
Count me in.
Lou
yipeedodaday@reddit
Ask Me Anything. Over on the r/ama sub folks with some interesting backgrounds do a thread and readers are welcome to ask questions about said interesting background.
RabbitBusiness4205@reddit (OP)
Before I got to IBM's punch cards, there was mag tape (input on the Uniwriter - Univac) and paper tape {input on the RCA Bizmac ).
mrwhynot243@reddit
What’s your thoughts on modern testing approaches, like unit testing etc?
Smiley_Dub@reddit
If you were to start afresh today in the programming world, where would you begin?
What's the most important life lesson you've learned?
Many thanks in advance
RabbitBusiness4205@reddit (OP)
When a new popular language (like Python) comes along, look into it.
Lou
Smiley_Dub@reddit
Thanks Lou 🙏
KimPeek@reddit
Thanks for dropping in, Lou! Thanks for helping craft the field as well. We stand on your shoulders.
RabbitBusiness4205@reddit (OP)
Thanks!
Lou
DevLaunch@reddit
Hey Lou, people like you enabled us to do what we do today, hats off to you sir!
RabbitBusiness4205@reddit (OP)
Thanks! Lou
Kseniya_ns@reddit
What are your views on contemporary languages and ways?
RabbitBusiness4205@reddit (OP)
I looked at Python and didn't see a revolution. Object Oriented Programming was the biggest programming advance in my career.
LM
captainAwesomePants@reddit
Wow! What type of computer did you work on that was most dissimilar to the computer programming of today, and what was it like programming for it?
RabbitBusiness4205@reddit (OP)
Sorry to report, most computers are similar. I remember programming (1978?) an early Texas Instrument microcomputer (in Basic) and remarking ,"Wow! This is like an IBM mainframe!".
The main dissimilarity (?) was progressing from machine language to a language like Fortran.
aWildNalrah@reddit
You can just say you’re anyone anymore 🤯
Smiley_Dub@reddit
V v v v v well done to you Sir 👏👏👏
jdfthetech@reddit
When OOP came out, was it difficult to adapt?
MutedEngineering579@reddit
Newcomer here! Started in 1978 but never made a career out of it -- only as a side skill.