The Last One, Personal Computer world and me
Still clearing out the office, ready for the move. Still chucking out my life by the recycling-bin load.
But, today, lurking in a corner, I found this 26-year old issue of Personal Computer World:
Boy, did I get it in the neck for this one. Not from my publisher or my colleagues, but from other journalists and editors. They thought it was a huge joke and that I (at the time, both the writer of the piece and the editor of the magazine) had made a monumental mistake.
It's only now, looking back, that I realise that they probably didn't even read the article. Or, in fact, read the coverline which ends with a question mark. Truth is, they were probably jealous at the attention we were drawing away from their titles.
The program in question was called "The Last One" and it not only worked (eventually) but, for donkey's years, its publisher made money out of a consulting business wrapped around the software.
Marck Pearlstone was the programmer who was called in to rescue the project in the early days, when it was very buggy. He's been my partner (and the programmer) in Brainstorm Software for the past ten or eleven years.
If you're interested, The Last One generated application code for commercial applications.
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I had mixed feelings about application generators, or 4GLs as we sometimes called them. I could get something up and running in days rather than months, but then when the requests for enhancements came in it was often frustratingly difficult to deliver, and sometimes impossible under the restraints of the built in fixed logic.
I sometimes wonder if today's Ruby on Rails developers experience similar.
Posted by: Andy Roberts | July 12, 2007 at 11:18 AM
Bong!! Seconds out...
Anyone care to comment?
Posted by: David Tebbutt | July 12, 2007 at 11:40 AM
i remember "the last one". I think I read about in 1981.
I thought the concept was excellent. When I heard no more about it,
I wondered if the concept had been undermined by the coming of
"graphical interfaces".
It might be a very good idea ("the last one") for graphical interfaces. But as the definition of a graphical interface is much more loose than a "command line", we could be a long way from a final version of "the last one" for a graphical interface. The problem is that future graphical interfaces will include VR interfaces or other interfaces equally as complex. Let us however carry on boldly.
Richard Mullins
portal0001@lycos.com
Posted by: richard mullins | September 20, 2007 at 08:25 AM
I had a copy: - 1981/2 - it ran on an Apple II. My basic wasn't up to understanding the output but it did work. I seem to remember that we were going to be swept away by the next version which was going to generate Assembler code. I would like to see any info about the program for old times sake. I found your scanned PCW article on http://www.presshere.com/html/pw8102.htm but the illustrations were not included. Do you have a copy of the original with illustrations?
Huw Davies
Posted by: Huw Davies | October 09, 2007 at 01:31 PM
Hmm. I think it's in one of those boxes over there...
[Rummage, rummage]
Yep, here it is.
I've made an HTML set. Not the most elegant but it's all more or less there.
http://www.tebbo.com/pix/thelastone/thelastone.html
Sorry about the wordy link.
Posted by: David Tebbutt | October 09, 2007 at 03:11 PM