- From: Dailey, David P. <david.dailey@sru.edu>
- Date: Tue, 1 May 2007 08:18:48 -0400
- To: "John Boyer" <boyerj@ca.ibm.com>, "Simon Pieters" <zcorpan@gmail.com>
- Cc: <mark.birbeck@x-port.net>, <public-html@w3.org>, <public-html-request@w3.org>
On Mon 4/30/2007 6:28 PM John Boyer wrote: JB: Why would we ever write a language that allows one to say C = A + B; when we already have LOAD AX, 1000 LOAD BX, 1004 ADD AX, BX STO AX, 1008 ??? DD: The first time I saw Fortran I wondered the same thing. "Don't reinvent the wheel" is what I thought at the time. I thought I had invented the phrase. It turns out, though, that the phrase actually dates back to the very early days of intellectual property law when a fellow named Xoq announced a patent claim (the prehistoric analog of such) on the purported first wheel and later coined and trademarked the phrase (as a part of the marketing of said wheel) to put a stop to Groq's attempts to make wheels. The rest of the story is all too familiar. cheers, David
Received on Tuesday, 1 May 2007 12:18:34 UTC