This has been an interesting thread. David, Steve, and all of you, you
have interesting things to share.
I really have not given all of this much thought... until now. I have
given it a little thought... through the years. I think I need to ponder
it more now to see what comes of it.
I would say my BS degree from the UofA was a waste of time and money. I
really learned almost everything I needed to know at the JC down the
street.
It has been a wild ride. I insisted in being in technology and have the
road rash to show for it. For a long time I had a love/hate
relationship with technology. Maybe that is just life.
Life has been a challenge. I think technology has been more so than say
being an accountant.
I miss the good ol days... I liked messing with Pascal and dBaseII. The
old days playing with my dual floppy, no hard drive, 640K of RAM, and 14
inch monochrome monitor, and thinking of all the possibilities.
One thing I realize is I should have learned C in the very beginning.
At the JC they used Pascal to teach programming. I think they should
have taught plain old C. Make it a 2 semester course. Teach the
fundamentals the first semester, and get advanced in the second
semester.
I've always looked at technology as a hobby that I could make money off
of. Maybe that is a short coming. I really did not try to optimize for
that... I was a leaf floating in the wind. This has me thinking...
Anyway - Steve, I was stationed at El Toro Marine Corps Air Station 1976
- 1977 - about a year and a half. Cal was really nice back then. The
base was rural and the city had not built up around it yet. I recall
being on I5 on a Sunday afternoon and there were just a couple cars in
sight.
I can only imagine working second shift as a programmer in Santa Monica,
CA in that era and eating an old fashion burger. Back in the day when
CA was a great place to live and beef was still beef. That sounds like
a good life!!
On 2022-08-24 00:46, Steve Litt via PLUG-discuss wrote:
> On Tue, 2022-08-23 at 19:29 -0700, techlists@phpcoderusa.com wrote:
>
>> I've made friends with a guy who works at Walmart who tells me he used
>> to be a COBOL programmer and his job was sent to India.
>>
>> About 5 years ago I met a guy at a local car show. He was showing his
>> 1960's Vette. He told me he was a COBOL programmer.
>
> It's offtopic, but this story fits in with what you just said.
>
> A long, long time ago, when I was a fairly new programmer working
> second shift, I
> took lunch at All American Burgers on 10th and Wilshire in Santa
> Monica. I had with
> me a book on Pascal programming.
>
> A homeless guy was wandering around the restaurant, talking loudly
> with somebody I
> couldn't see, making wild gestures. I steered clear and went to the
> counter to order
> my hamburger. The homeless guy drifted toward me, I assumed to
> panhandle me. But
> when he got four feet from me, he looked at my book and said "Th
> That's P Pascal,
> it's a p programming language." (Gesture, gesture)
>
> He continued, "I used to be a p programmer, b but I don't l like it any
> more."
>
> Then he went back to animatedly talking with his buddy I couldn't see.
>
> For a long time I wondered if I'd end up like him, especially after I
> read Edward
> Yourdon's book "Death March". That was 38 years ago, and I still talk
> to myself only
> when others can't hear me, so I guess I didn't meet the same fate as
> that guy.
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