Blast from the past (re: Fred Brooks)

[d000hg]

M$ ... Windoze

Really? Still, in 2022? You're a bit old to be talking like a spotty 14-yo from 1992

[tazdevil]

Youngsters, my first attempt at programming was toggling the code in on the front panel of a PDP8 and the next experience was punching holes in paper tape My dad got into programming in the early 50's as a civil servant when they came round asking for people to be programmers (no experience necessary) for the new computer thingy that was the size of a house for the DHSS He got membership of the BCS just for being a programmer in those early days.

I remember Algol, Fortran and the early days of C and writing programs in Fortran then taking the assembler output and optimising it to improve performance Nowadays its Java all the way for me

[TheDude]

My first job was Ada 83 on OpenVMS using a dumb text editor working for Logica.

I was unlucky not to be in one of the better departments using modern technology and it took me a few years to escape legacy hell.

That said I learned a hell of a lot.

[vetran]

Sinclair Basic on ZX81, then CPM for building voicemails.

The change has been incredible.

[d000hg]

Youngsters, my first attempt at programming was toggling the code in on the front panel of a PDP8 and the next experience was punching holes in paper tape My dad got into programming in the early 50's as a civil servant when they came round asking for people to be programmers (no experience necessary) for the new computer thingy that was the size of a house for the DHSS He got membership of the BCS just for being a programmer in those early days.

I remember Algol, Fortran and the early days of C and writing programs in Fortran then taking the assembler output and optimising it to improve performance Nowadays its Java all the way for me

My dad worked on the PDP...11 I want to say. They were just switching to things like MS-DOS3 and Novell as I became old enough to understand such things, he worked on the early days of computerising the printing industry.
So luckily the oldest I ever had to work on was MS-DOS on an AMSTRAD 1512 (which was awesome).
Although at uni my physics course insisted on teaching us FORTRAN while CompSci was focusing on Java (even back then they were trying to ditch C++)

[Dark Black]

Ah. Zorland C. There's a copy of that in the front room office somwhere. On 5.25" floppies. .

I did quite a lot with that.

There's a copy of M$ FORTRAN 77 in there somewhere too.

I did quite a lot with that. . (Though it's been untouched since 1991 when Siliconix closed down).

There's a copy of M$ C V3 in there too, with the Windoze(tm) SDK on a single floppy IIRC.

Yes, didn't Borland threaten to sue them or something, so they changed their name to Zortech.

[mattster]

I think it was called Joel on Software and was written by Joel Spolsky but yes, it was a brilliant blog

Agreed, read a lot of his stuff back in the day. His Netscape rewrite article referenced in the OP is a classic, as are many of his posts actually.

[tazdevil]

My dad worked on the PDP...11 I want to say. They were just switching to things like MS-DOS3 and Novell as I became old enough to understand such things, he worked on the early days of computerising the printing industry.
So luckily the oldest I ever had to work on was MS-DOS on an AMSTRAD 1512 (which was awesome).
Although at uni my physics course insisted on teaching us FORTRAN while CompSci was focusing on Java (even back then they were trying to ditch C++)

Yes I worked with the PDP 11 and RSX-11M forerunner to VMS which was the forerunner to WNT which became Windows (same design lead). Factoid, VMS > WNT, IBM > HAL

[vetran]

Yes I worked with the PDP 11 and RSX-11M forerunner to VMS which was the forerunner to WNT which became Windows (same design lead). Factoid, VMS > WNT, IBM > HAL

you missed OS2.

[tazdevil]

you missed OS2.

Yup was subscribed to IBM's OS2 developer programme