"SkippyPB" <swiegand@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
> wrote in message
news:jfods3h3evo9r5br875lu9iqv0547e7g6i@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
> On Thu, 28 Feb 2008 11:21:13 +1300, "Pete Dashwood"
> <dashwood@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
> wrote:
>
>>
>>
>>"SkippyPB" <swiegand@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
> wrote in message
>>news:4f7bs35q4kcbp71vbd88irhimoun85qksb@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
>>> On Wed, 27 Feb 2008 09:36:44 +1300, "Pete Dashwood"
>>> <dashwood@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
> wrote:
>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>"tim" <TimJ@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
> wrote in message
>>>>news:13s728si8g08id9@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
>>>>> On Tue, 26 Feb 2008 10:46:19 +1300, Pete Dashwood wrote:
>>>>>
>>>>>>
http://www.wa****ngtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/02/23/AR2008022300693_pf.html
>>>>>>
>>>>>> What I'd like to know is exactly HOW you can establish yourself as
a
>>>>>> Geek,
>>>>>> so you can claim this defence. If writing a file system for Linux
is
>>>>>> all
>>>>>> it
>>>>>> takes (a weekend's work for a COBOL programmer...), then there are
a
>>>>>> lot
>>>>>> more Geeks around than many people may suppose.
>>>>>>
>>>>>> Did he do it? (Jo Brand, referring to O. J. Simpson: "Course he
did
>>>>>> it;
>>>>>> he's a bloke...")
>>>>>>
>>>>>> Thoughts?
>>>>>>
>>>>>> Pete.
>>>>>
>>>>> You must be pretty good if you can write 15,000 lines of
>>>>> multi-processing kernel code in a weekend.
>>>>
>>>>Well, leaving aside the fact that I AM pretty good :-), it was said
with
>>>>tongue-in-cheek...:-)
>>>>
>>>>As a matter of record, I once wrote a complete access method for a
>>>>mainframe
>>>>in a Bank, over a weekend. Another dedicated guy and myself worked on
>>>>implementing it into about 300 programs over the same weekend. It
>>>>enabled
>>>>direct access based on Account numbers and had its own ha****ng
algorithm
>>>>based around the structure of account numbers in that particular Bank.
>>>>It
>>>>was a complete callable subsystem that implemented all the functions
of
>>>>data
>>>>maintenance using VSAM RRDS. On Monday, everythng was working when the
>>>>staff
>>>>showed up. We had a total of 9 hours sleep each and were given the
rest
>>>>of
>>>>the week off... :-) It was a long time ago; I wouldn't/couldn't do it
>>>>now
>>>>:-)
>>>>
>>>
>>> So you're the guy that did that!! First job I had out of college was
>>> working in an all IBM Assembler shop. They had about 20 different
>>> applications consisting of around 300 programs or so. One of the
>>> first changes they wanted was to convert their file access system from
>>> DA to ISAM (which was the soup de jour of the day). The reason was
>>> noone, and I mean noone myslef included, could figure out how the damn
>>> thing worked! It did work but neither I, the resident Assembler
>>> programmer or the account's IBM system engineer (back in the days when
>>> these guys could write code with the best of them) could figure out
>>> how it worked. The person that wrote it and moved on to another job
>>> in another state and wasn't available for questions. This wasn't a
>>> bank, but I'm going to blame you for my many nights of writing code to
>>> change the file access. :)
>>
>>Not guilty. Mine was a "black box". I have to ask, though, if it
worked,
>>and everyone agreed it worked, why change it?
>>
>>Pete.
>
> They were changing all of their applications from IBM Assembler to
> Cobol and the access system couldn't be rewritten in Cobol. There was
> no suggestion of making it a subroutine, which could have been done.
> And, as I recall, it had a limitation of only being able to work with
> 2311/2314 disk. Another upgrade was going to be installing 3380 (I
> think that's what they were) drives. So while it wasn't broke, it was
> not ****table or upgradable.
Hmmmm... if the Assembler used standard housekeeping for IO it shouldn't
have mattered what device it was on. I suspect they just wanted rid... :-)
A callable subroutine would have been better, I would've thought.
Thaks for posting the response, Steve.
At least we know the reasoning, whether it was right ot not... :-)
Pete.
--
"I used to write COBOL...now I can do anything."
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