| Author | Message | ||
| byoung
Intermediate Member Username: byoung Post Number: 136 Registered: 12-2004 |
After making another post about copyright (which always seems to put me in mind of the GNU General Public License), I was wondering if there are any hackers hanging out in the Alembic Club. Mica told me that Alembic hosts a monthly Perl (Mongers?) meeting, so I know I'm not totally nuts. So, any free software hackers out there? Software developers? Chime in with what it is that you do. Inquiring minds (well at least one...) want to know. Brad | ||
| bracheen
Senior Member Username: bracheen Post Number: 871 Registered: 11-2003 |
What is "Perl"? | ||
| adriaan
Senior Member Username: adriaan Post Number: 642 Registered: 6-2002 |
I'm a database developer in MS Access and MS SQL Server. Front-end, back-end, mostly modifications to base systems that my company sells, sometimes special stuff. We are moving towards an ASP.NET interface, but there will still be lots of legacy systems out there. For a keyword module, I wound up creating my own search language and GUI for end-users so they wouldn't have to write endless subqueries in SQL. Great fun - but that doesn't happen too often. We are a small branch and so the programmers get to handle trainings and support calls, so I do get out and about sometimes. | ||
| davehouck
Moderator Username: davehouck Post Number: 2489 Registered: 5-2002 |
Sam; go here for an answer; or the short answer is that Perl is a programming language. | ||
| keith_h
Advanced Member Username: keith_h Post Number: 215 Registered: 2-2005 |
I'm a software engineer. I work primarily in large system operating systems and TCP/IP protocol suite. Keith | ||
| lowlife
Intermediate Member Username: lowlife Post Number: 190 Registered: 12-2003 |
I'm also a softwarre engineer. My skill set is based in RPG & CL running on the AS/400 (IBM iSeries) platform. I work for a textile manufacturing firm and since I'm the only code writer, I get to work on (and screw-up) almost everything. Ellery (Lowlife) | ||
| mpisanek
Member Username: mpisanek Post Number: 74 Registered: 1-2005 |
I'm a dinosaur! I program in mainframe assembler, COBOL, Fortran, PL/1, on a CICS platform. In the PC world I write in Assembler, Visual C++ Etc. | ||
| keith_h
Advanced Member Username: keith_h Post Number: 217 Registered: 2-2005 |
Mike, When I say operating system does MVS come to mind? :-) Not extinct yet, Keith | ||
| kmh364
Senior Member Username: kmh364 Post Number: 1144 Registered: 9-2003 |
Wow, those languages still exist? As an Electrical Engineer studying in the '80's, I coded in C, Fortran, Pascal, BASIC, Assembler, PSPICE, MAthCad, etc. We had hi-tech Apple II-C's, 60's-vintage Perkin-Elmer dumb terminals running on an antiquated Burroughs UNIX mainframe, Z-80 and 8085(!) microprocessors (which I built and coded with assembler, then added external circuits to perform rudimentary tasks), and DOS-based 8088, 8086, and 80286 machines! Talk about a dinosaur! I got thru college with a 8086-clone NEC V-10 based PC running DOS @ 10MHz with 640k RAM, monochrome monitor, with two 1.2M 5-1/4" floppy drives (NO hard Drive)!!!! Alright, I did have a costly HP LJII-P laser printer, so my print-outs looked head-and-shoulders above the other guys who had hot-rod 286 and 386 computers, but only had $100 Star dot matrix z-fold feed printers, LOL! Good thing I specialized in Power Systems (hasn't changed significantly since the '20's) and am in Construction Management, LOL! I can hardly remember my DOS commands, nevermind how to write code! | ||
| jacko
Advanced Member Username: jacko Post Number: 383 Registered: 10-2002 |
Keith. It's OS390 now ;-) still the same though. For the record, like Mike I'm also a dinosaur, looking after the Bank of Scotlands' VTAM network. (although I also support the mainframe IP stacks) Graeme | ||
| adriaan
Senior Member Username: adriaan Post Number: 646 Registered: 6-2002 |
I guess this makes me a childhood dinosaur - I got started on Apple II (later Apple C) with some kind of Basic, then I briefly moved on to a BBC/Acorn. Much later, I became quite an expert in writing macros for WordPerfect 5.1 to automate lay-out chores for catalogues, and finally I got into databases. Training? Mostly informal. | ||
| keith_h
Advanced Member Username: keith_h Post Number: 219 Registered: 2-2005 |
Graeme, Actually it is z/OS but I'm tired of learning new acronyms every time a marketting person hiccups. :-) I never worked VTAM development, started off in DFDS (now called DFSMS) for MVS and VS1 doing device error recovery, SIO exits and SYSGEN. Then moved to MVS TCP/IP architecture followed by IP Printway (I was partially responsible for it's predecessor NPF). I was also one of our companies rep's on the IETF TN3270 Work Group and did TN3270/TN5250 stuff. Keith | ||
| jacko
Advanced Member Username: jacko Post Number: 385 Registered: 10-2002 |
for what it's worth, VTAM is now Z/OS communications server and I'm no longer a sysprog, instead, they like to call me a 'Senior Technical Consultant' whatever that is ;-) Graeme | ||
| mpisanek
Member Username: mpisanek Post Number: 76 Registered: 1-2005 |
I have to look back and laugh sometimes. In 1984 I had the same COBOL code running on IBM, Burroughs, Unisis, Amdahl, Honeywell, HP, and DEC. Then C, the portable language came along, which could only run on an IBM PC! The machine of the time was the IBM System 390. Only the biggest companies had the brand new 3030s. | ||
| bracheen
Senior Member Username: bracheen Post Number: 880 Registered: 11-2003 |
Thanks, Dave, it's all over my head but at least I know what it is now. Sam | ||
| son_of_magni
Advanced Member Username: son_of_magni Post Number: 218 Registered: 1-2004 |
Software developer... mostly C++, but have done everything from assembler to pascal, python, perl, asp, DCL (heh)... | ||
| dela217
Senior Member Username: dela217 Post Number: 549 Registered: 6-2002 |
Mpisanek - We speak the same language! I had COBOL running on IBM, DEC, and Four Phase! Worked in VTAM development. But these days, I am just a tech in the pc world. Supporting networks using Cisco and Cabletron stuff. Boring. Michael | ||
| bob
Senior Member Username: bob Post Number: 533 Registered: 11-2002 |
Yeah, I 'm a programmer too. Curious how much overlap there is with musical types. Taught myself Fortran, Calcomp plotting, PL/I, 370 Assembler - after graduating college with a liberal arts degree and washing floors for the first summer (no regrets, I'd do the same thing again). Spent about 10 years doing mainframe OS support and development (VM/370, VM/XA, and something similar at an IBM-compatible mainframe company named Amdahl, subsequently swallowed up by Fujitsu). Yes, I touched some VTAM stuff a few times, wrote channel programs/device drivers for the Xerox 9700 laser printer when they first came out, and some other obscure things - but *never* wrote a COBOL program, and was glad there was someone else to handle the MVS and VS/1 stuff, while I got to focus on VM :-) (Just having fun, some of you will appreciate the context) Took a full ten year hiatus from actual coding (mostly because I couldn't be bothered with C and C++ - "just like Java, but with memory corruption"), and acted as architect/tech lead on some large client-server projects. Then, while working for a small startup, picked up a couple of books on Java, and have been coding that for about 8 years, with much emphasis on custom UI stuff (Swing), but also lots of relational and multidimensional database access work. If this is starting to sound like a resume... Well, that startup has been gobbled up twice so far (unfortunately, without any windfalls that would let me get out of this crazy business), and there's some chance it will happen again within a year or so, and I'm simply not equipped to work at a company like Oracle or SAP. In real life, I've been a loyal Macintosh advocate since before they were officially announced, and I've done all my development work on them for years now, despite the fact that the company I work for doesn't officially support them. One has to have some standards, after all. It can't all be about the money... -Bob | ||
| keith_h
Advanced Member Username: keith_h Post Number: 238 Registered: 2-2005 |
Bob, I had to give up Java. Couldn't handle the caffeine. :-) Sorry I couldn't resist. Keith | ||
| mpisanek
Member Username: mpisanek Post Number: 87 Registered: 1-2005 |
I have found that an awful lot of musicians seem to work in, or have worked in the IT industry in one form or another. It must be the discipline or something. | ||
| adriaan
Senior Member Username: adriaan Post Number: 656 Registered: 6-2002 |
Nah, pretty sure it's mpisanek's "something", rather than "discipline". And the realization that you will wind up second-guessing everything - or is that just the Dutchman in me? |
