Praxis: Difference between revisions

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Blaming Sandy and NotTheMama for not being engineers or scientists for a less than propitious start in life, plus a generous helping of mea culpas, my first working life was less than it might have been. A success tho in delivering me as a life long learner with [[Mensa|<span style="color: cyan;">high IQ</span>]] and unusual depth of experience to the new opening and free epoch. Things were learned. Although I might take on outside work on a part time or project basis, my passion and day job is right here.  
Blaming Sandy and NotTheMama for not being engineers or scientists for a less than propitious start in life, plus a generous helping of mea culpas, my first working life was less than it might have been. A success tho in delivering me as a life long learner with [[Mensa|<span style="color: cyan;">high IQ</span>]] and unusual depth of experience to the new opening and free epoch. Things were learned. Although I might take on outside work on a part time or project basis, my passion and day job is right here.  


From the late nineties I mostly worked remote, but did work on-site in Buffalo in '14/15, and from the late 80s most jobs were on a contractor basis, Givaudan being the longest employee role, from the turn of the century largely independent of 3rd parties. I would say the GMRV job conclusively ended this stage of work life. The last paid gig was Sep '23 and while it wasn actually a PWYWG, I'm designating as the first such as it was charged at a few days of my thrift rate. It had a mutually happy outcome, the kind I've generally been able to limit myself to for some time. Pauca sed bona. I am an Ayn Rand communist which you can find out more about from the &#x5DE5; &#x738B; link.
From the late nineties I mostly worked remote, but did work on-site in Buffalo in '14/15, and from the late 80s most jobs were on a contractor basis, Givaudan being the longest employee role, from the turn of the century largely independent of 3rd parties. I would say the GMRV job conclusively ended this stage of work life. The last paid gig as of this writing was Sep '23 and I'm calling it the 1<sup>st</sup>lly a PWYWG, as it was 3 days at my thrift rate. It had a mutually happy outcome, the kind I've generally been able to limit myself to for some time. Pauca sed bona. I am an Ayn Rand communist which you can find out more about from the &#x5DE5; &#x738B; link.


As an aside to &sect; d, <i>Mainframe Heritage</i> of the 2 page brochure, the Burroughs systems programmer job at Daytona Beach Community College '83-85, was a transition in two senses, it was the first time I was actually carrying a real development responsibility and the first time I would have control of the computer other than the personal ones I had at that time which were considered toys still. The shift after that to work on PC based systems, first with Methods/Digitalk Smalltalk at EER then contracts at IBM Boca, mostly OS/2 related, completed that transition to a mature doer. It's kind of amazing to think the first couple of years in those days you might not actually have a coding responsibility which is unthinkable now but in the last of the mainframe days not so much. DBCC ran on a 6800 but a few months in the Burroughs FE found a 6700 on a state of FL scrap heap and it was brought in and used by the ~10 person programming staff as a development machine which I controlled from my office. So that was how I became hands on. I did modify COLLEGEMCS, put PRINTERMCS into service for the app staff, and made a trivial MCS to operate a very troublesome OCR test forms reader. In a  MCP shop of those days the systems programmer would compile the OS and components on upgrades and manage system level deployments.
As an aside to &sect; d, <i>Mainframe Heritage</i> of the 2 page brochure, the Burroughs systems programmer job at Daytona Beach Community College '83-85, was a transition in two senses, it was the first time I was actually carrying a real development responsibility and the first time I would have control of the computer other than the personal ones I had at that time which were considered toys still. The shift after that to work on PC based systems, first with Methods/Digitalk Smalltalk at EER then contracts at IBM Boca, mostly OS/2 related, completed that transition to a mature doer. It's kind of amazing to think the first couple of years in those days you might not actually have a coding responsibility which is unthinkable now but in the last of the mainframe days not so much. DBCC ran on a 6800 but a few months in the Burroughs FE found a 6700 on a state of FL scrap heap and it was brought in and used by the ~10 person programming staff as a development machine which I controlled from my office. So that was how I became hands on. I did modify COLLEGEMCS, put PRINTERMCS into service for the app staff, and made a trivial MCS to operate a very troublesome OCR test forms reader. In a  MCP shop of those days the systems programmer would compile the OS and components on upgrades and manage system level deployments.

Revision as of 01:47, 8 January 2024