Some handwritten code by Mel on this page: http://www.bemorehealthy.com/LGP-30Computer/The30.htm

That's why when I take on a new web programming project my first action is to order 10,000 NAND gates.

That's just old-fashioned. Even Real Programmers use FPGAs for the first iteration now.

Real Programmers dope their own silicon.

If you wish to create a program from scratch you must first create the universe.

There is definitely room for improvement there http://abstrusegoose.com/244 :D

Call me grumpy, but that joke (the Real Programmer that goes lower and lower level) is a bit tired...

You're grumpy.

Did anyone actually doubt he was a real person?

Still, it's nice to have his full name.

I've always thought it was an exaggeration based on some truth. Either way, he's definitely a legend. He even has a wiki page: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mel_Kaye

See also http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/LGP-30.

I did wonder if his name was really Mel - the rest of it sounded entirely plausible.

However, that story always reminds me of the chap I used to know who had done some programming with a hand drill...

I'd be interested in knowing what became of him--no luck finding anything online.

I love that story, always nice to hear a story is real and not just an abstraction for the many 'real programmers' out there. But who are the modern Mel's? http://www.codemaestro.com/reviews/9

The link to Bill von Hagen's corroboration is broken; site search yields the right one: http://foldoc.org/pub/misc/MelKaye.txt

(whv: thanks also for the gripe@ece.cmu.edu years)

I never did get the concept of "real programmer", I mean when it comes to defining a programmer I would go with wikipedia

A programmer is someone who writes computer software. The term computer programmer can refer to a specialist in one area of computer programming or to a generalist who writes code for many kinds of software.

Now tell me how anyone who does not know how a language or framework works, but can still make computer programs out of it, is not a "real" programmer?