Fwiw, web development in 2022 comes with a lot of impressive tooling. Stuff that would surely enthuse Engineer Scott onboard StarshipEnterprise. While Uhura, and that hot green chick that Kirk was smitten with, will never be improved upon; a modern-day web nerd can set up a workstation that makes those clunky-sixties-user-interface lights on TheBridge seem like … well, primitive and clunky lights.
To be sure, the Enterprise bridge situation seemed altogether groovier – even in turbulence.
(Another footnote – here on PlanetParentheses … the ‘what it’s worth’-part that began our voyage … and the pursuit of ‘www’ development [**alert!…gratuitous phaser blast from StarshipBracket…] is that ‘web dev’, aka: the massive, masochistic, time-suck, hermetic rabbit hole [albeit somewhat interesting and sobriety inducing] … suffice to say, I wouldn’t cheerlead alongside Bill Gates in the least … that everyone (especially kids) ought to “code”. Typing sh*t into a computer is just that. And indeed, using one’s hands for that – to the displacement of oh, all the other stuff that humans must do to survive … well, you get my point. Oh right, we’re still on Parentheses with its tangent-rich atmosphere … anyhoo, another tangent is that back in 1977’s version of 7th grade; us well-tested math doers got marched down to Jerry Forte’s classroom because surely we were the Bill Gateses of the future. [**incoming PhotonPhattie alert! Turns out I was more on a path of being a bit of a stoner who enjoyed the guitar. …phew! … near miss..]
So we go down to see the great computer. With its telephone neatly stuffed into a … PhoneOrifice
… coupled with a snappy language called BASIC
…[I think REALLYF*CKINBASIC was the original acronym … score! StarshipBracket +1 point!]
That is to say, if you really FOCUSED (…which was like…never, on PlanetNonGuitar [probably largely due to Starship OncomingTestosterone] why you’d fiddle and type out your little BASIC program …
…and get this [“ya Gramps, How many pixels WERE there back then? **Zzzzoing..!]
Not a one! Not one god-damned pixel in all of Jerry’s classroom! or the great ControlData mothership down in the twin cities somewhere.
[yes kids…you couldn’t even show your thingie on the computer back then…only later did 8-pixel-thingie-implementations first appear…as a thing – things with little impact at that ***+++—].
So essentially, the great running of the computer programs [PlanetLincolnJuniorHighSchool not PlanetPamplona] was anticlimactic to say the least. It could have just as well printed out: **//you are a 7th grade nerd douchebag//** . In fact, now, I really wish I could have written that very ‘program’ … like some time-traveller from the future who assures some of them that they’ll at least get a yacht or some shit for all that typing. Some, might shoot their electric car into space … some may even jettison Capt. Kirk himself, into lower-fake-space! (PlanetDigression)
So what did we mostly do?
We mostly played Control Data’s version of … Star Trek.
And Uhura only lived in our imagination, the proper place for foxy engineer ladies.
[Schmidt! Calling Schmidt! Where are you? …–**PlanetChubby?] StarshipBracket, +1000 points for the win!
I started this morning’s CoffeeBlogPost to simply show this screen shot of the latest tweak to my starship bri…I mean code editor. Bringing in an italicized theme … and then importing a font that will make italicized key words show in handwriting font (sort of clarifying the program’s grammar) … seems perty friggin’ cool to this Schmidt anyway (scion to many blacksmiths, preachers, and farmers if that clarifies) [please no clever Uhura refs here schmidt. …*photon*boom!].
* footnote: coding happens in ultra terse forms of language and ironically I quite admire that when not riffing on FB. Still, I think we on PlanetEarth need to slow down, clean the shit out of our bed, and generally find a way to use these tools appropriately (read: mostly turned off, getting clear about how the tools actually use us.)
maybe best continued after beam down to PlanetAnotherPost.
Island Notes 