Re: Productivity
- From: "Pete Dashwood" <dashwood@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Mon, 25 Dec 2006 01:37:04 +1300
"HeyBub" <heybubNOSPAM@xxxxxxxxx> wrote in message
news:12oosqtmgaqcd81@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
Pete Dashwood wrote:
Guess it's time for a change... :-)
Pete.
Don't jump to conclusions. It has been my experience that luck has a lot
to do with program development - maybe more than anything else.
The same way luck decides who wins at Chess? :-)
I'm not dismissing luck; as a keen Backgammon player I know that a lucky
player will beat an expert player, in the short term. In the long term;
skill will out. And every lucky streak eventually goes cold...
Nevertheless, your comment may be fair, because I only have a sample of one
and it COULD be luck.
I don't think it is. I don't think it is because, (when it comes to
programming) I am meticulous and have acquired skill. Assigning success to
having lucked out, simply devalues the many hours of thought and effort I
invested in the project..
How many times have you said to yourself: "I'll be damned. It worked the
first time!"
When this happens it isn't luck; it is care, thought, skill, and a lot of
sweat. I EXPECT stuff to work the first time; If it takes more than 3
compiles, I start thinking about a redesign...:-)
I should qualify this by saying that I write and debug at a function level.
I don't write huge programs with thousands of lines of code and then compile
them as a single entity. I write say, 50 to 100 lines (a SECTION) then
check that it works. The end product could be many thousands of lines, but
that will be many building blocks glued together, and each block will be
separately focused on, designed, built and debugged. (And many of these are
simply reusable modules that are plugged in and are known to work.) .
And how many times have you just never been able to get the
sucker to function at all?
Only once. Forty years ago... the very first production program I ever wrote
in COBOL. It had to produce 6 reports and one of them never worked... :-)
These days if I found myself writing code that never worked, I'd consider
some other form of employment...
Same tools, experience, money, etc. The only difference is providence.
No, I've never been to Rhode Island so I don't know what life changing
catharsis could be experienced there, and I don't believe in a Higher Power
who throws dice to decide whether COBOL programs work or not. Providence
simply doesn't cut it for me.
I am reasonably satisfied in this instance that, although luck cannot be
ruled out, it is far more probable that the superiority of the tools made
the difference.
I have come to believe in Visual Studio 2005... : -) The DotNET framework
also simplifies a number of things.
(And C# is a pretty cool language too...)
It seems I am not the only one finding this. Demand for C# skills has almost
doubled in the last 6 months and is still steeply rising.
Quote from 'Information Week' October 4th, 2006...
"Hudson sees particularly strong demand for developers, especially those
with C# skills, says Taylor. At this time last year, the demand from Hudson
clients for developers was 70% related to Java, 25% to C#, and 5% to C++.
That's not the case this year, with 70% of demand for developers with C#
talent, 25% for Java, and 5% for C++. "
Here's the full article:
http://www.informationweek.com/management/showArticle.jhtml?articleID=193104411&subSection=Career+Development
People wondering where their COBOL career may be going, should consider
this.
Sometimes it is comforting to have a parachute, even if the plane is flying
steadily...
It isn't hard to learn but it DOES require some time and effort. And there
are new concepts, (like OO), which reqire suspension of what you already
know, and acceptance of a different way of approaching things.. There is a
huge amount of information and (downloadable or runnable online video)
tutorials available, at all levels of programming skill (including Absolute
Beginner), for FREE, along with software and IDE downloads, for FREE. I have
been quite stunned by the quality of some of this material and would expect
to pay for it...
Maybe you just got lucky.
Possible, but unlikely.
Pete.
.
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