The OFFICIAL programming thread

Kilemall

@Hog said in The OFFICIAL programming thread:

When I was an accountant our IT contact showed me how to write reports on our mainframe financial system myself so I didn’t have to keep bothering him. I wish I could remember the name of the system and language. I think that helped me get a job as a programmer in IT later.

Then, before our desktop computers were networked, I wrote a distributed financial reporting system in VB that used the mainframe to transfer data back and forth between head office and the other offices spread around the country. I can’t remember how I did that either.

JCL, an RPG program, or WFL? I’m guessing proprietary front end RPG.

If it was before proper Ethernet, likely a specialized datacomm card going to a multiplexer or modem that hooked into the mainframe. It would be RJE if it was IBM.

@Kilemall said in The OFFICIAL programming thread:

JCL, an RPG program, or WFL? I’m guessing proprietary front end RPG.

Damn, I really can barely remember any of it. It was a pretty basic templating thing from memory. You laid out what fields you wanted and then had some ability to incorporate some logic but I don’t remember it being particularly heavy on the programming side.

And re the latter thing, all the offices were already connected to the mainframe because it was an airline so I don’t know how that part worked. My program uploaded a bunch of files, one for each office, once a month. My same program had a “client” version in the offices that downloaded the one that was right for them, allowed them to add notes and do whatever they need to do and then upload the result. Then the head office version then consolidated them all. It was a purely programming solution from my perspective so all of the infrastructure must have been in place already. It would have been in 1992/3. We called it the “Performance Reporting System” or PRS but my initials were PR so everyone in Finance called it Peter Roehlen’s System.

Thinking back to that time, what staggers me was that anyone could do anything programming wise pre-Google. How the hell did I find the library for and work out how to connect to the mainframe from a desktop app? These days I’ve already closed two dozen search tabs by the time I’ve stopped for lunch.

Gators1

@Kilemall said in The OFFICIAL programming thread:

@Gators1 said in The OFFICIAL programming thread:

@Kilemall said in The OFFICIAL programming thread:

I worked with 8” disks on my first mainframe. It loaded what IBM calls firmware and you would know as BIOS.

Fun fact, the machine was capable of loading its native firmware or IBM firmware- system emulation was already a thing in the 1970s when the machine was designed.

I was watching a video about the Soviet computer program in the 60s and 70s and how they were trying to copy the IBM 360 back in the day so they could steal our softwarez and get caught up. One comment he made sort of made me laugh…there was a big dispute among the American computing community at the time over high level programming languages. A bunch of purists thought machine language was the only way to go and fuck COBOL. That was back when computing truly was for nerds. I think I sent my first email on a mainframe back at UF, at least I had to use a CLI to do it.

Fair chance it was Unix by then- 1990s?

Yeah, early 90s. I had to send emails for some class teaching us computers were the future or some shit. Also got on the first iteration of the world wide web and remember going to yahoo, which was a link page back then. That was before AOL I think or just when it started.

Gators1

@Hog said in The OFFICIAL programming thread:

Thinking back to that time, what staggers me was that anyone could do anything programming wise pre-Google. How the hell did I find the library for and work out how to connect to the mainframe from a desktop app? These days I’ve already closed two dozen search tabs by the time I’ve stopped for lunch.

We had those thick ass books we had to buy back then. Hell the software used to come with them, even games.

I just started using groups on Chrome recently and it’s actually pretty useful. Instead of having 200 pages open at the top and I can’t read any of the tabs, I have all the pages grouped together for the various projects I am working on. There’s even a flag you can set to save the groups into your bookmark bar.

Kilemall

They read books, and had to figure out what wasn’t documented.

Ya sounds like some RPG package. Not an online system.

Hmm maybe M204 based?

@Gators1 said in The OFFICIAL programming thread:

@Hog said in The OFFICIAL programming thread:

Thinking back to that time, what staggers me was that anyone could do anything programming wise pre-Google. How the hell did I find the library for and work out how to connect to the mainframe from a desktop app? These days I’ve already closed two dozen search tabs by the time I’ve stopped for lunch.

We had those thick ass books we had to buy back then. Hell the software used to come with them, even games.

I just started using groups on Chrome recently and it’s actually pretty useful. Instead of having 200 pages open at the top and I can’t read any of the tabs, I have all the pages grouped together for the various projects I am working on. There’s even a flag you can set to save the groups into your bookmark bar.

Yeah tab groups are great. I still make a habit of closing everything at least once a day though - it helps me focus better since the nature of what I need and am working on changes regularly.

Kinda related but I switch between Edge and Chrome depending on who I’m working for and, man, I miss vertical tabs/groups when I’m using Chrome.

Gators1

Programming quote of the day:

“For fuck sake, WHY!!! It fucking worked before! Two fucking hours I have been at this shit for one fucking block! Fuck you you fucking piece of shit!!!”

-Gators1

rote7

@Gators1 The universal language all programmers are fluent in: Swearing.

Gators1

@rote7 said in The OFFICIAL programming thread:

@Gators1 The universal language all programmers are fluent in: Swearing.

I think my neighbors called for a wellness check on me.

Tazz

Tazz

I’m trying to work out what’s unethical about the below. I can’t figure out the angle:

link to thread

Gators1

@Hog said in The OFFICIAL programming thread:

I’m trying to work out what’s unethical about the below. I can’t figure out the angle:

link to thread

Maybe sandbagging your development time? Like if you are actually a faster coder than your peers, but you keep your development time in line with your peers so you can play some COD in the afternoon? Dunno.

Kilemall

@Hog said in The OFFICIAL programming thread:

I’m trying to work out what’s unethical about the below. I can’t figure out the angle:

link to thread

Good practice, too easy to make oversights in the rush to finish and better to look at with fresh eyes and another round of QA.

Gators1

I wish our developers thought testing their code was a good idea. Even worse our department wants to go to CICD so they will break production even faster.

Kilemall

@Gators1 said in The OFFICIAL programming thread:

I wish our developers thought testing their code was a good idea. Even worse our department wants to go to CICD so they will break production even faster.

In banking you get fired if you create downtime. Well ok somebody is getting fired, and often it’s the poor programmer ordered to do stupid things, not the manager who actually caused it.

Gators1

@Kilemall said in The OFFICIAL programming thread:

@Gators1 said in The OFFICIAL programming thread:

I wish our developers thought testing their code was a good idea. Even worse our department wants to go to CICD so they will break production even faster.

In banking you get fired if you create downtime. Well ok somebody is getting fired, and often it’s the poor programmer ordered to do stupid things, not the manager who actually caused it.

Banking actually pays for talented programmers though, unlike my company.

I’ve always tested my code but our process for migration to QA is such a PITA that I’m doubly incentivized to get it right and not have to go through it more times than is necessary.

Kilemall

@Gators1 said in The OFFICIAL programming thread:

@Kilemall said in The OFFICIAL programming thread:

@Gators1 said in The OFFICIAL programming thread:

I wish our developers thought testing their code was a good idea. Even worse our department wants to go to CICD so they will break production even faster.

In banking you get fired if you create downtime. Well ok somebody is getting fired, and often it’s the poor programmer ordered to do stupid things, not the manager who actually caused it.

Banking actually pays for talented programmers though, unlike my company.

That’s a problem.

Bail fast, inevitably bad engineering leads to Boeing.