11 Jun
2009
11 Jun
'09
8:57 a.m.
On Thu, 11 Jun 2009, Josh Dersch wrote:
Lucky B******! :-) Even more lucky since that indicates they've never used
cassette tapes as a storage medium for computer data!
the command
prompt and increasingly they have never used floppy disks.
...no floppy disks? SAY IT AIN'T SO! Can I just say that the "everyone is an idiot
(except me)" argument is
getting rather tired? Flash back 25 years ago and you'd hear the same
arguments, only it'd be former ITS/TOPS-20/LispM users complaining about
those upstart UNIX lusers.
Or go back to 1965 ... I have a book here on IBM 1620 programming that states
boldly, in the Preface, "There are too many programmers today who do not
really know what they are doing..."
I agree there are a lot of poorly educated tech guys out there. I'm not
going to be so bold as to state that *MOST* of them are ignorant idiots. At
least, not without evidence :).
The problem is summed up by the following, "those how forget history are
doomed to repeat it". I forget who said that, and it is a very rough
paraprase, but the meaning is clear.
Businesses seem to favor the kids fresh out of College with the "bright new
ideas". This needs to be balanced by people with a historical perspective.
A prime example is a meeting we had at work on Monday, when we came to
realize that a performace issue we're fighting is the exact same issue we
had 8 years ago. The solution that solved the problem 8 years ago now
suffers from the same exact problem due to the advances of testing. Those
of us with a historical perspective were able to quickly explain why various
"fixes" won't work.
What really irritates me is all these "new" technoligies that Microsoft has
"invented" that have been around for decades. Some aren't even new to the
PC world.
Zane