[Info-vax] 1 year.

[David Froble]

Simon Clubley wrote:
> On 2015-08-06, David Froble <davef at tsoft-inc.com> wrote:
>> IanD wrote:
>>
>>> Then you have the diminishing skills of the folk who are meant to
>>> look after the application but being VMS adverse, this too is a
>>> loosing downward spiral
>> This I do not buy.  For example, my son works at a nuclear power 
>> station.  They trained him for what he must know, they pay him a decent 
>> salary, and they have a reactor operator.  Application design and 
>> programming is no different, other than a person needs to have an 
>> apptitude for the work.  If you want VMS capable people, hire them, 
>> train them, pay them, and you have what you need.
>>
> 
> That's how things used to work. It's not how things work in the
> general case now.

I'd question whether today's "general case" actually works.

In the medical field there can be "quacks".  I don't know what the name 
for them is in DP, but I've seen many.

> My CV shows a continuing history of adapting to and learning new things
> which simply didn't exist at one time; by any reasonable definition
> I have demonstrated my ongoing ability to adapt to new situations.

This is normal.  Things advance.  New things appear.  A competent 
software person must advance or be left behind.  However, some of what 
might be called "advances" in DP today are in my opinion most definitely 
not "advances".

> However, around here, unless you match a set of the specific frameworks
> of the month/year (with experience) you don't even get considered for
> many jobs regardless of the demonstrated aptitude you may have.

The last "job" I had was in 1982.  Since then I've run my own company. 
Yes, the company works for customers.  It's close to the same thing, but 
different in many ways.

I've felt for some time now that it is not the people who are the 
problem, it's the management that is a problem.  The peter principal is 
alive and well in management.  That's the environment.  I don't really 
have an idea how to improve things.  But when necessary, I won't 
participate.

> The sad thing is that learning a specific framework isn't even the biggest
> task in many cases; it's learning the application specific codebase at
> your new employer that's likely the major timesink for any new employees.

Agree 100%.  I've always maintained that before I can design software to 
run a company, I first must be capable of running the company without 
the computer(s).

> So yes, I can _easily_ believe IanD when he says he has issues in
> this area.

Yes, see above about "management" ....

Excellent example ....

One of my customers in the past was the marketing part of a 
manufacturer.  I had provided extensive software for order processing, 
inventory management, accounting, forecasting, and such.  Things were 
working quite well.  (Pats self on back.)

In time, someone from one of the "big 4-6-8 or whatever accounting 
firms" ended up with the parent company.  He thought the entire company 
should be using the same software, and thought that the manufacturing 
software in use at the parent company should be used in the marketing 
company.  He managed to push this concept, and what my company had 
provided was deprecated, then done away with.

Ok, things happen, and I moved on.

Now, this idiot managed to spend in 7 or 8 digits in an attempt to get 
the manufacturing software to work in the marketing and sales 
environment.  Never did get there.  Whenever an employee mentioned the 
prior software that worked well, he / she got "the ax".  Could not tell 
the idiot anything, he was in charge, and therefore he "must be ""right""".

I was told that there was 3 re-writes of the forecasting, and it never 
did the job.

End of story, that company no longer exists ....