The Link 15 Guru Talk

GURU'S CHAPTER


      by GURU/TSR


  this month i will be conitinuing the
article about real programmers that i
started last month


        norry has short arms



THE REAL PROGRAMMER AT WORK

   the typical RP wouldn't be caught
dead writing accountant programmes in
cobol or sorting mailing lists for
PEOPLE magazine.  an RP would work at a
place like,

los alamos lab,writing simulation for
atomic bombs
national security agency decoding the
russian transmissions
it was the work of 1000's of RPs that
got us to the moon before the ruskies
work for boeing,with cruise missiles
   some of the most awesome RPs work at
the jet labs in california,many know the
op sys off by hearts and have managed to
program bit of space junk to hit rows of
residencial windows after 6 years in
space

   one current plan is for a spacecraft
to pass within 80 km (+/-3) of the sur-
face of mars,no-one is going to trust a
pascal programme(r)to do this

   oh and by the way,real programmers
can write fortran programmes in any
language
THE REAL PROGRAMMER AT PLAY

   a real programmer often plays the
same way he works,with computers

   tips on RP's at play:
at a party,RP's are talking about op
sys security and how to get around it
at a footy game, RPs are comparing res-
ults with predictions on fanfold paper
at the beach,RP's drawflowcharts in the
sand
at the funeral,RP's are saying "poor
george,& he almost got that sort routine
working before the coronary"
in the grocery store the RP is the one
who insists on running the cans over the
laser check himself,because he couldn't
ever trust keypunch operators to get it
right first time
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RP'S HABITAT

surrounding an RP's computer is,

listing of all the programmes he has
ever worked on
some half filled cups of cold coffee,
occasionally, the cups will contain
orange juice
copies of the os jcl manual open at the
interesting pages
lineprinter snoopy calender for 1969
wrappings for snacks
an old old flowchart template, real prog
ramers write programes,not documents
an RP is capable of working 30,40 even
50 hours at a stretch under intense pres
sure,in fact,he prefers in that way.

bad response time doesn't bother him,
it gives him sleep time in between com-
piles

if their isn't much pressure on him for
a particular job,the RP makes it inter-
esting by working on a small, interest-
ing part of the programme for the first
nine weeeks and finishing the rest in
the last week

GENERALLY
no RP works 9 to 5(unless its at night)

RP's dont wear ties
RP's don't wear high heeled shoes
RP's arrive at work in time for lunch

RP's might not even know their spouses
name,but they know the entire ASCII
alphabet

RP's don't know how to cook,shops aren't
open at 3 in the morning,so they survive
on mars bars and coffee

THE FUTURE

RP's are concerned about the future,
high school leavers can't do hex maths
without a calculator, college grads are
getting degrees without even seeing
fortran

however there is still a demand for RP's
and their legend will continue with the
latest unix upgrade ie,2 completely
incompatible user interfaces,and with
'C',beside the fact that it is structure
it can be appreciated,it's like having
the best bits of fortran and assembly
thrown in to one.  yes the future isn't
looking too bad for RP's

as long as there are ill-defined goals
bizarre bugs,and unrealistic schedules,
there will always be a real programer
willing to jump in and solve the problem
and leave the documentation for later
long live fortran!!!!!!


anon




  guru is back.


good artcile eh?  if you want the full
article, write to me with about $1 for
photocopies,and i'll send it to you,or
you can get the 1986 your computer year
book

    thats enough from me.

hooroo from the guru

                    three-tree-slo-toth