Punching Holes

Mike Hoye: “The idea of ‘code’ as an information control-flow mechanism barely enters into it; that compilers exist at all is given a brief nod at the start of chapter 25 of 27, but otherwise it’s holes-in-cardboard all the way down. You can draw a straight line back in time from Unicode through a century of evolving punchcard standards all the way to the Hollerith Census Tabulator of 1890.”