bdavis__

20 ms·

151.
by bdavis__ 6y ago
i would call a vax a "super mini". one of the crop of 32 bit multi-user systems that came out in the 80's. a pdp-11 was a mini, it was multi-user, but the machine was weak. a 'super mini', with 16MB of memory, no
152.
by bdavis__ 6y ago
"completable software". that's the ticket. the maturity to say no more features will be accepted; it is done. for the past 20 years we have been teaching the agile way, that points to the constant churn of requirements, the
153.
by bdavis__ 6y ago
you have a point. allow me a counter. incompetent people can do little snippets of work for a sprint, and then get promoted. and be absolutely unable to deal with anything more complex that a small bit of functionality. after a couple of
154.
by bdavis__ 6y ago
More important, what does his boss think about his job performance. You seem to be complaining that your CTO is not a developer. Which, in general, he should not be.
155.
by bdavis__ 6y ago
i agree with you! nice to see someone else using fortran 77. or at least reading it.
156.
by bdavis__ 6y ago
Guessing !! N,X, and F are probably related to NE,XE, and FE "E" means "error"? Maybe. IERR is an error flag. Idiomatic fortran there. Each of those variables will be defined later on, in the code. at least with a typ
157.
by bdavis__ 6y ago
another piece of our history and shared culture passes into oblivion.
158.
by bdavis__ 6y ago
Centos6 goes out of support this year.
159.
by bdavis__ 6y ago
single deck allows it.
160.
by bdavis__ 6y ago
This is slightly before my time, but worldwide all F16 Weapon System Trainers (simulators for the F16 aircraft) were hosted on Norsk Data machines. They had a hardware shared memory that allowed more than 1 processor. This was 1970's
161.
by bdavis__ 6y ago
of course it does !!
162.
by bdavis__ 6y ago
i hope you are correct. it is so easy to deprecate someone else's skills and knowledge with massive change like this. would it be that hard to respect some of the users?
163.
by bdavis__ 6y ago
would you loan money into this kind of uncertainty? i think this is a very rational decision for a bank to take. (hate for the banks aside, i would do the same thing..)
164.
by bdavis__ 6y ago
i don't think they feed that may people directly. they do manage via regulation and research, how the US farmers grow the food that 380 Million people consume. ag dept was created in 1862.
165.
by bdavis__ 6y ago
in 2 months. 1/6 of a year.
166.
by bdavis__ 6y ago
if only i could be top tier talent, and my employer would let me do only the work i am explicitly given. when an individual task is complete, there is always someone that could use help, or an idea to document, or one of a million things yo
167.
by bdavis__ 7y ago
they can, but not with any kind of custody and integrity like the post office. postal employees are background checked and the process is monitored and audited to ensure the integrity of the mail system. voting by mail is one thing that is
168.
by bdavis__ 7y ago
I see other comments that bring up the 'RF pollution' from aircraft travel..all of those airplanes spewing RF, and harmonics all over. How about normal pollution? All those tons of burned hydro carbon absent from the atmosphere
169.
by bdavis__ 7y ago
still true today. (not really, but there is a lot of f77 out there...)
170.
by bdavis__ 7y ago
I propose that most of the code written in the old days, in COBOL in particular, was not done by computer scientists. There were many lanes for learning COBOL, and they included community colleges and industry training courses. The amount
171.
by bdavis__ 7y ago
How about the people that you buy food and gasoline from out in west texas? Just collateral damage?
172.
by bdavis__ 7y ago
wear the shame proudly. in 10 years you will have moved up several steps on the ladder using this technique. and probably earned a good salary. the dept you lead is in constant turmoil, no long term planning is done, the code is brittle an
173.
by bdavis__ 7y ago
They probably would not even bid. Working on an OS project is fundamentally providing labor hours. Not high margin, no lock in, no investment and high profit tail on the business. It would end up going to little companies providing bodie
174.
by bdavis__ 7y ago
they were purchased. the government does not just take property. in the end it may be the GSA price, which may not be the same as target was expecting to retail it at.
175.
by bdavis__ 7y ago
there are always constraints. other than the cost of the memory, which may appear minimal, there are many others. for a missile that bigger memory chip may require more current, more current means a bigger power supply, or a thicker wire.
176.
by bdavis__ 7y ago
when you design the system, you make sure there is enough physical RAM to do the job. Period. the problem space is bounded.
177.
by bdavis__ 7y ago
Ada is used a fair amount in high $ projects. Toolchains are expensive, and the C compiler is provided for free from the chip / board vendor.
178.
by bdavis__ 7y ago
I am sure there are exceptions. Let me try to add some clarity, from my work experience. Cost Plus work is only done when there is risk. It is monitored on a cost and schedule basis by the customer (govt). At certain cost milestones, the
179.
by bdavis__ 7y ago
Companies don't like cost plus. The amount of profit is limited, and the govt has total access to all book keeping. In addition, the govt program doesn't have an unlimited budget. They have some 'management reserve' tha
180.
by bdavis__ 7y ago
Have used one of those ! The 'automation' for its time was great. And calibration; signal amplitude measurements were always right on.

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