"The program used an elegant (optimized) random number generator to shuffle the "cards" and deal from the "deck", and some of the salesmen felt it was too fair, since sometimes the customers lost. They [the Sale Department] wanted Mel to modify the program so, at the setting of a sense switch on the console, they could change the odds and let the customer win. Mel balked. He felt this was patently dishonest, which it was, and that it impinged on his personal integrity as a programmer, which it did, so he refused to do it."
IMO, this story can be a sort of Rorscasch Test that can reveal something about its readers.
For example, when I read this what stands out to me is that Mel brought a sense of ethics to the use of computers.^1
Salespeople at Mel's employer wanted to use computers to manipulate customers. Mel refused to help them.
Others read this story and only focus on Mel's tactics for programming a computer.
"You can learn a lot about an individual just by reading through his code, even in hexadecimal. Mel was, I think, an unsung genius."
In the same way the story's author, who was a Professor of Astronomy at IT Austin, believed that reading Mel's source code could reveal something about Mel, to me, the comments of people who read this story can reveal something about those readers.
"The RPC-4000 computer had a really modern facility called an index register. It allowed the programmer to write a program loop that used an indexed instruction inside; each time through, the number in the index register was added to the address of that instruction, so it would refer to the next datum in a series. He had only to increment the index register each time through. Mel never used it."
To me, "The Story of Mel" is about a person who preferred to think for himself instead of letting others do it for him.
If memory serves me correctly, I recall seeing comments online about this story that "advise" readers, "Do not be like Mel." The question is what do they mean by that. Are they referring to programming tactics, ethics, both, or maybe something else entirely.
1. No only that, but the author was so impressed by Mel's ability that he adopted similar ethics himself.