Praxis

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Juan Edwin Daugherty (* 29 December, 1953 in Chicago; † — ebenda? ), professionally « 仁人卷 », is an American computer programmer. Having happily aged out of the IT career track, e has high hopes. AMAB, He, Him are His binär vornamen. 'Semi-retired' means monetization of production isn even in 2^nd place in the values gotten from work for him.

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A ce stade de son métier, Software Auteur

工 王

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1974 - 2023

A less than propitious start in life, blaming Sandy and Laverne for not being engineers or scientists plus a generous helping of self owns led to my first working life being less than it might have been. However I consider it a success in delivering me more or less whole, as a life long learner with a high IQ, and considerable depth of experience as an IT worker, to this point where I can work for myself, society at large, and direct production. Although I knew early on that wage earners never escape commodity labor earning levels, only the unfolding of time landed me at a place where I could fully act on that knowledge. I might in the current stage of work life take on wage work but only on a part time or project basis. This is my permanent day job here.

1974 is the actual start because that's when I took training at the schools Control Data was running and actually did first programming, but I went back for a 4 year degree majoring in Math and CS and only had Operator jobs before 1980. I did have a DP course at a community college before CDC in '73 which pushes it back to my teens. The Control Data Institute I went to btw, was in the building shown on the Bob Newhart Show at that time on Michigan Avenue as being where he had his office.

As an aside to § d, Mainframe Heritage 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 real MCP shop the systems programmer would compile the OS and components manage them at source level.

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 工 王 link.

Before retirement/freedom, there were a few work experiences that could, in a stretch, like much of the current hype cycle, and of yore of compilers, be considered AI. First some systems of the Air Force Satellite Control System network such as dynamic programming and other techniques used for attitude manoeuver, stationkeeping and other ops planning would arguably be considered such, although I had no hands on, I did have source access. The "metadatabase" of the EER job where I was introduced to Smalltalk had ambitions in that area. The central hourly labor scheduling algorithm of CSIs EMPS product which I improved qualifies. Finally, the Givaudan client server engine, now on my github, probably the most consequential work in my non-free work life, by virtue of its adaptive handling of SQL. Could also start recounting compiler related things but not doin that, because pretty much none of this fits either my current or past notion of fulfillment on this term of art.

Rest of this § a digression on political economy in this period. The div here about CV space moved to the talk page.

I am very far from thinking that the acquisitive instinct is fundamentally wrong or that altruism is necessarily right. I definitely believe that selfishness which does not harm others can be a virtue, it's just that so far, a thetic social form that makes it so has not been achieved. The present neoliberal and state capitalist world order shows a widening gap between workers and workers of Capital, relative to its predecessors, which provided factory workers with middle class incomes. A brave new world of greater social security but less effective individuality emerges, not as was and is thought as a result of totalitarian or 'democratic' socialism but rather ironically as a result of the global dominance of doctrinal capital with its supposed philosophical base in individualism.

Defined as a basing of society solely on the principle of accumulation, Capitalism will ultimately be unsustainable because of the unappreciated aspect of mortmain. Every social order puts someone, a class, in charge. Globalized Capitalism is unique in that it just puts a class in charge and an abstract one at that. It's just false that that class operates in the way former orders did to control and order society actively, indeed they are incapable of doing so since the globalized class is inhibited by a number of practical reasons from being the same kind of conscious actor that a national bourgeoisie can be and most simply pursue their own interests and genuinely don't desire power aside from that which accumulation confers. It is this rudderlessness which ultimately will cause a return to Capitalism just being an economic regime within society organized on some other principle(s) as was the case in its progressive period, and is the case in the successful statecap regimes.

To paraphrase 邓小平, it is indeed glorious to become rich, but not by expropriation and not at the expense of the best possible development of society at large.

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