From: Peter Hickman <peter@...>
Date: 2007-04-04T20:08:36+09:00
Subject: Re: PHP in rubyforge?

M. Edward (Ed) Borasky wrote:
> I struggled through two years of Russian in college because someone 
> had told me that the Russians were ahead of the USA in math and 
> computer science. Hell, it turned out that they were still using 
> vacuum tubes and the only thing they knew how to do better than we did 
> was probability theory. I should have learned French instead -- or 
> Japanese.
>
The use of vacuum tubes provided a significant defence against EMP or 
weapons designed to scramble the electronics, any system built around 
vacuum tubes is less likely just to pack up. This would have allowed the 
Soviet fighter planes to be operational in the same theatre as nuclear 
weapons were being used. Of course this was probably a happy coincidence 
and not a design decision.