RE: WDSC and Linux

> From: Bartell, Aaron L.
>
> I am a programmer.

Aaron, your points about my being a pain in the ass are certainly noted, but
I am going to make this point: if you don't know what the computer is doing
when you call an API, then you are not a programmer.  You are an application
assembler.  Every single programmer should have at least one year in which
they write in some sort of machine language and develop a small, working
operating system from scratch.  And fit it into 8K.

On the other end of the spectrum, people who have nothing but academic
knowledge of their product and no idea of what the real world is like should
be forced to deal with that side of the business.  For example, at SSA, we
had a policy where once a year application programmers had to sit on the
help desk for a week and answer requests.  The idea is to be broad AND deep,
which takes a lot of hard work.  You don't get there in a few years.


> Joe, just because you know that 1=on and 0=off doesn't mean crap if you
> can't put them together to make a good application in a timely fashion.

Aaron, you don't really know my background.  I've developed and delivered
more application code to more clients under tighter deadlines than you ever
will.  My clients were people like Pfizer and Duracell.  In Belgium I had an
entire processing plant producing millions of units a day depending on my
modifications.  I know more about deadlines (including internationalization
and multiple platform support) than you can imagine.  And yet I still insist
on knowing what my code is doing - and in fact, that's probably why I hit my
deadlines, because I don't blame the code if it doesn't work.  I instead
figure out what's broken and fix it.

Anyway, I understand your being ticked off at my tone.  But I still think
that your attitude ("I am a programmer, I don't need to know how the stuff
works!") is a very scary one.

Joe

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