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Old 09-30-2012, 01:03 AM  
wizarddrummer
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Join Date: Oct 2011
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I've been a programmer for more than 30 years.

This was a decent article, well thought out and accurate.

Most clients take programmers for granted or they think that this shit happens by magic.

Depending upon the Development Environment, it can be smooth sailing or it can be some of the most frustrating hours a person can endure.

I cringe every single time I have to work in a Microslop environment. I'm putting the finishing touches on an Access Database project I've been developing for more than three years (single-handedly BTW) with only small, tiny crumbs to stay alive. I hope to make several million dollars when we finally do get to sell it.

Most of my headaches in this and previous projects have always been as a result of Microcheeses inability to create good, consistent Operating Environments and/or Development Environments.

I'm having to do a 11th hour new design feature to get around Microphlegm hideous Operating Systems. The system has a companion spreadsheet that I developed to pull data from the Database (spread sheets are much better for 'displaying' than databases) over the network. The problem is that this spread sheet is installed on 17 different machines pointing to single BACK_END.

There's nothing wrong with the design as it runs PERFECTLY on about 9 of the machines on the remaining machines there are reference issues, missing code libraries, and other factors such as dependent files not in their previous locations for Microscum in their less than enchanting 'infinite - no limits' wisdom decided to change locations of these files in different versions of their crappyass Operating System XP, Vista, Windows 7 are ALL different in how they are configured. Not to mention that machines within the same OS are different if the Service Packs and updates are not the same.

It's a nightmare sometimes.

Most people have no idea the level of frustration that developers have to go through when designing a new program.

For me, when I'm working with Microsoft (and I've been doing that since BASICA on the original IBM desktop machine), I spend about 30% of my time fixing, finding workarounds, searching for solutions to their inconsistent crappy stuff, and beating my head against the wall because I can't make a difference in the world to tell people to STOP BUYING Microsoft's CRAP!

Long story short, be kind to your programmer because you don't often know the HELL he/she's been through to get your product off the ground and if at all possible STAY AWAY FROM anything to do with Microsoft.

I've coded more than 1.7 MILLION lines of code in 11 different program languages on machines as tiny as a Radio Shack hand held in the early 80's to IBM Mainframe Clusters and Cray Super Computers.

All of my most severe, dismal experiences have come from working with Microsoft.

Some environments and/or languages are better suited to accomplishing programs than others. For example you would never want to write a 3D graphics program like Maya using ADA or COBOL or .NET.

So, when considering projects consult with your programmer regarding the platform that you will be developing on (if you have a new proj starting up) so that you can get the best bang for your buck!

The big project I'm working on is solely my design (with input from experts in the field) and it succeed or fail based upon the design and my ability to implement it.

So far, our demonstration / showcase system has been running on more than 50 machines for about 3 months now.

If I wasn't doing my own thing, with my own company, I would on the lookout for jobs that do have an ownership stake in the company.




Cheers!

Last edited by wizarddrummer; 09-30-2012 at 01:09 AM..
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