For all the IT bods.....funny
 

And quite good for anyone else you has had or endured field service.

The Six Stages of Field Service Support

MT

DEC-20's and TOPS-20??? Man that is OLD! not as old as me though, I remember TOPS-10 (work it out!) God i hate old IT blokes going 'Back in the day.......' mainly cos I remember back in the day!

Real Programmers use Fortran. 8)

Yup, I once worked with a guy called Ian vincent. His party trick was to halt a processor from the front panel, he would then examine the register that pointed to the execution stack and then step through said stack disassembling the hex numbers.

I have to admit that having written macro32 on VAX computer for 5 years I was getting quite proficient at reverse engineering object code back to the high level routines my colleagues were struggling to debug.

Fortran was the second language I ever learnt back in 1977, I used to love implied do loops. Quirky thinks such as integers valiables started with i-n and code had to start at the 7th column. the 6th column being a continuation etc.

Oh for the simple days when there was nothing wrong with a goto. Now having to code in the likes of java and c# , there are far too many ways to skin a cat.

Today we are lazy, the link between the programmer and the hardware has gone. No longer do we have to think about what data we wish to make common between not only subroutines but how we would construct overlay areas to allow sections of code to be overwritten in memory yet persist the data etc.

Programmers in "modern" languages are only lazy because of two reasons:
1) They were poorly taught.
2) They've got into bad habits allowed by modern languages.

I've worked in Fortran (and COBOL as well as some other comparitively hellish languages. The old ways are still there, they're just not taught, because there's now a faster way to achieve the same goals. Well, faster if you're proficient in the language being discussed/used.

Anyway, I'll jump off the soap box now. :oops:

Got to agree. There is so much bloatware around. A close link between programmers and the hardware made for efficient code. Using high level languages like JAVA (interpreted FFS!!!!!) may be highly portable but munches resources. Programmers (in the main) do not worry about the effect thier programs have on the systems, as hardware is cheap. These days many shops just buy thier way out of performance issues.....

The only code I get to write these days is still Assembler though :D

Java can be compiled, and is only shipped compiled by our company :) We also don't even bother to ship our Java app with JDK. If the clients have it, fine, but we don't need it.

Personally though, I hate the use of an IDE (whilst we're on the subject of bloat), give me notepad any day!

Also, yes, write an app in Java, write the same app in ASM. The ASM version has a smaller memory footprint, and the executable itself is generally smaller.

I write html with an editor. and used to write my java the same way.

I have to admit the IDEs are nice when they start to give you lists of all the classes/members etc. in the package/class etc that you are referencing. Together with parameter lists etc. It certainly aids the development process.

I have never gone to far down the compiled java route. I only tried it the once and gave up as it seemed that all classes in the app needed to be compiled. fine for my code obviously, but where I was using JDBC connections etc I did not have the Oracle/microsoft etc classes to compile.

I also like the way that technology has evolved. No more do I have to write record handing systems. Just throw the data into an oracle database etc and make calls on the database. Forget having to work my way through ISAM files. and low level i/o calls etc.

However, I do still think about my data. I use bits for status etc and am adapt at logically testing the bit in a status integer that I am interested in.

For noddy programmesand number crunching I usually use C. but for supportable business based e-apps stuff I usually end up in java writing servlets and the odd data management interfaces using swing etc.

Jaysus. Notepad???

Emacs. Yer only man. :wink:

I used to have a port of good old DEC EDT when I used Solaris. These days I tend to use ultraedit on me laptop. I like the fact I can cut/past in columns etc.


But then again what is wrong with vi