Tell me more ×
Programmers Stack Exchange is a question and answer site for professional programmers interested in conceptual questions about software development. It's 100% free, no registration required.
up vote 2 down vote favorite

When reading Programmers at Work (by Susan Lammers), they often refer to code as "listings". Why is that?

share|improve this question
1  
The question as is sounds like it belongs to english.SE instead... – delnan Mar 3 '11 at 19:05
3  
She's probably referring to specific chunks of code used as examples in the text of the book. They could also be called "snippets" or "chunks" or "samples"... – FrustratedWithFormsDesigner Mar 3 '11 at 19:06
2  
"Listing" is pretty common terminology. The LaTeX package for source code is called Listings. – chrisaycock Mar 3 '11 at 19:12
1  
@Matthew, @FWFD: I think you're too young to answer this correctly. – David Thornley Mar 3 '11 at 20:13

3 Answers

up vote 17 down vote accepted

It was more common when we read code on paper - long lists of code from a line printer.

Remember the green ruled paper ... arghh the nostalgia!

enter image description here

share|improve this answer
Yup. Once upon a time it was fairly common practice to actually print your code out on paper, as laughable as that seems today. – Adam Crossland Mar 3 '11 at 19:23
1  
@Adam Crossland - Why laughlable? When I'm working on an algorithm (or something that reasonably fits within a page or two) I usually print it out. Better than staring at it on screen watching where you missed that one index. ... Although, I grant it's not so common approach anymore. – Rook Mar 3 '11 at 19:43
1  
@Rook: I thought of it as being laughable largely because the reason that I did it back in the days that I was working on PDP-11s and later VAXen was that it was sometimes the only way to get a handle on a non-trivial bit of code. The displays were 80 characters across and 24 lines down, and that just wasn't a whole lot of code. Today, I can rotate my widescreen monitor 90 degrees, change fonts and see a whole bunch of code at one time. – Adam Crossland Mar 3 '11 at 19:52
I remember those days. Dot matrix and all churning out MSBasic and RMCobol. Ahaaa. – TeaDrinkingGeek Mar 3 '11 at 20:02
1  
A long time ago, in a shop not really far away, the codebase was in a primitive version control system (based on virtual punch card decks), and also printed out and sitting in bindings (this was before we all had terminals). We had a "lock to edit" process that consisted of writing "See <name> before changing" on the program listing. I prefer local computers with two monitors and Subversion, on the whole. – David Thornley Mar 3 '11 at 20:12
show 3 more comments
up vote 2 down vote

The term dates back to a time when programs were stored on eighty-column Hollerith-encoded punch cards. I am old enough to remember those days. All of my early programs where entered via a keypunch machine and debugged via printed compiler output "listings."

As an aside: early terminals were eighty columns wide because that line size mapped well to "card image" data. Most of the early on-line systems were merely data collection and presentation subsystems for card-image batch systems. This information processing model was known as "deferred batch."

share|improve this answer
up vote 3 down vote

It refers to printed out code.

Actually, in a food manufacturer that I've been to in the last few years, they still print out all code from their PLC's and keep them in hanging files. Part of the procedure for updating a program always involves updating the paper copies.

Maintenance people regularly come in and pull a binder to look at it. In some ways it's handy, especially when you can look at it on big plots (it's a graphical programming language) rather than on a tiny screen.

share|improve this answer

Your Answer

 
discard

By posting your answer, you agree to the privacy policy and terms of service.

Not the answer you're looking for? Browse other questions tagged or ask your own question.