What is code

Needs (2015)

Amusing and whimsical. So.much.content. I enjoyed the end though. I spent about 17 minutes scrolling through, reading different parts and got to the end. It called me out for reading nearly 2k works per minute to finish in that time. haha.

Previous discussion: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9698870

Also article about its reception: https://m.huffpost.com/us/entry/7740986

don’t hurt me .. XOR

Originally, "code" referred to machine language. "Programming" meant designing the computation, and "coding" referred to translating it to machine language. "Automatic coding" was the term for translating a high level program to machine code, and it covered compiling and interpretation.

You can read all about it in Grace Hopper's 1955 paper Automatic Coding for Digital Computers.

http://www.bitsavers.org/pdf/univac/HopperAutoCodingPaper_19...

Though a woman, she talks the masculinized talk:

"The analysis is the responsibility of the mathematician or engineer, the methods or systems man."

[...]

"The job of the programmer is that of adapting the problem definition to the abilities and idiosyncracies of the particular computer. He will be vitally concerned with input and output and with the flow of operations through the computer. He must have a thorough knowledge of the computer components and their relative speeds and virtues."

[...]

"It is then the job of the coder to reduce the flow charts to the de- tailed list of computer instructions. At this point, an exact and comprehensive knowledge of the computer, its code, coding tricks, details of sentinels and of pulse code are required."