RE: [External] : Running emacs without any customisation

[Drew Adams]

> > That was in the 70's. Who are the equivalent people today?
> 
> One can never answer where the "equivalent people" are in
> a meaningful way. One cannot compare between fields and one
> cannot compare one decade to another - well, this makes for
> fun magazine articles perhaps, but it's just bogus if one
> looks for a real answer in it. So don't do that!
> 
> That said, I think it's safe to say today's people are as good
> or better in terms of technology: "development has gone
> forward" as the tautology goes ...
> 
> But: was this more easy, or more difficult to do? Did it
> require less, or more brilliance? Those questions do not
> compute ...
> 
> Also note that the "70s people", if active still, are also as
> much "today's people" as any 20 year old!
> 
> The first programmer in the world was probably some shaman in
> a cave. He would cut symbol's out of the stone wall, then
> inhale toxic fumes from the fireplace, and eat mushrooms he
> had carefully collected in the wood. Then he would stare on
> the inscriptions on the wall until he collapsed of mental and
> physical fatigue - the program had then executed in his head,
> and when he awoke with a big grin on his face he would have
> found the answer to his question ...
> 
> Now, if you would grab him from the stone age to OUR age and
> say, "Yes, uhm ... so today we don't use the cave wall
> anymore, and not the fire either actually! Instead we have an
> editor and a compiler, here, take a look ..." probably he
> would just say, " ... okay!" and the next time you'd see him
> he would stare into the monitor in deep thought writing
> code ...

All good.  But you left out the id of that
cave-shaman head-programmer: Zippy (also the
immortal antecedent who discovered the non
sequitur and domesticated the Doggy Diner).

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zippy_the_Pinhead

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Doggie_Diner

https://v7.comicskingdom.net/comics/zippy-the-pinhead/2022-09-19/?widgetId=570

http://doggiediner.com/pages/zippy_00.html