> a three-ring binder called the Prompt File, stuffed with printouts of the dozens of tables in the system, and religiously updated anytime anyone changed anything of significance.
Letter variables? Luxury! One of the calculator had ops like STO, RCL, PAU, GTO, GSB and some numbered "cells", where you could store the result of the calculation.
The other had ops like '74' which were coordinates of the key which activated the given function.
Getting the full screen of the ZX Spectrum surely spoiled me :)
Geometrical proofs could be construed as such, even with some propositional logic given that someone comes up with a solid, universal way of expressing it (cf. The Golden Record)
Well, as a DBA, I periodically use a 3rd party tool to print out the schema. It's mainly for new hires to learn from.
But sometimes I'll flip through it and notice:
- mis-spelled table names, usually duplicate tables
- missing FKs
- missing unique keys, most commonly for early RoR apps
- developer-specific EAV tables with 1 row.
The benefit always outweighs the dead trees, but printing once a year is typical. Back in the day, more frequenctly on 25-line terminals where there was too much scrolling.
User redis_mlc has been shadowbanned for eight months which is an abhorrent practice. He is a prolific contributor, but most readers will never see his comments. Occasionally, a reader with showdead:yes in the options and sufficient karma will "vouch" a post back into general visibility.
Necessity is the mother of documentation.