Showing posts with label programming. Show all posts
Showing posts with label programming. Show all posts
Thursday, January 8, 2009
300 baud acoustic coupler
I finally brought my old modem from home to show and tell here at work.
I think it's 300 baud and has a switch on the back to go between full and half duplex.
Remember when ear pieces on phones were round?
I used this at my first DP job to get orders from Wal-mart and Kmart. (This isn't the modem I talked about in the previous blog)
I think it's 300 baud and has a switch on the back to go between full and half duplex.
Remember when ear pieces on phones were round?
I used this at my first DP job to get orders from Wal-mart and Kmart. (This isn't the modem I talked about in the previous blog)
Wednesday, December 31, 2008
Project Euler - programming riddles
I was reading the Coding Horror blog and as usual, I checked out the comments. The first comment mentioned a site called Project Euler '... riddles to learn a new programming language...'
This sounded cool so I checked out the site and so far, I've solved 10 of the 200+ riddles. Each one took me around 15 minutes to solve. I'm sure the harder ones will take much longer.
As far as I can tell, all the riddles deal with math - prime numbers, Pythagorean triplets, Fibonacci sequence, etc... I never took anything past Algebra II / College Algebra. And while I probably could solve some the problems faster if I had taken more math, I have been able to solve the problems with out too much problem.
Some of these problems have let me use some really cool objects in java, like BigInteger. I even got to use the StringUtils.reverse method - I never needed to check for a palendrome before.
These problems might be a great way for someone to learn a new programming language and I really have enjoyed solving them.
This sounded cool so I checked out the site and so far, I've solved 10 of the 200+ riddles. Each one took me around 15 minutes to solve. I'm sure the harder ones will take much longer.
As far as I can tell, all the riddles deal with math - prime numbers, Pythagorean triplets, Fibonacci sequence, etc... I never took anything past Algebra II / College Algebra. And while I probably could solve some the problems faster if I had taken more math, I have been able to solve the problems with out too much problem.
Some of these problems have let me use some really cool objects in java, like BigInteger. I even got to use the StringUtils.reverse method - I never needed to check for a palendrome before.
These problems might be a great way for someone to learn a new programming language and I really have enjoyed solving them.
Wednesday, December 10, 2008
Okc Jug - Collections Presentation
Paul and I gave a presentation over the Java Collections Framework at the Oklahoma City Java Users Group Tuesday.
I'm so glad that is over... co-presenting is tough, especially without really practicing. I really think we would have done a better job if it had been just one of us doing the presentation.
We ran out of time way before we got to most of the good stuff. Oh well, we have now paid our dues. Maybe the Steering Committee people will quit bugging us to do a presentation. We were the only ones who hadn't done one.
My hope is that we did a bad enough job that they won't ask us to do it again. ;-)
I now have a little understanding what it takes to do a presentation at the jug. I should have spent more time on the presentation but I did spend about 20 hours reading, writing tests, and working on the slides.
I really enjoyed the 'wheel of fish'. Using the registration list and the Collections.rotate(list, randomNbr). I 'spun' the wheel and the winner got the shirt Laura helped my make:
The shirt says something like "I Survived the Collections Framework presentation at the Okc Java Users Group by Brian S. and Paul S., December 9th, 2008"
I'm so glad that is over... co-presenting is tough, especially without really practicing. I really think we would have done a better job if it had been just one of us doing the presentation.
We ran out of time way before we got to most of the good stuff. Oh well, we have now paid our dues. Maybe the Steering Committee people will quit bugging us to do a presentation. We were the only ones who hadn't done one.
My hope is that we did a bad enough job that they won't ask us to do it again. ;-)
I now have a little understanding what it takes to do a presentation at the jug. I should have spent more time on the presentation but I did spend about 20 hours reading, writing tests, and working on the slides.
I really enjoyed the 'wheel of fish'. Using the registration list and the Collections.rotate(list, randomNbr). I 'spun' the wheel and the winner got the shirt Laura helped my make:
The shirt says something like "I Survived the Collections Framework presentation at the Okc Java Users Group by Brian S. and Paul S., December 9th, 2008"
Thursday, November 13, 2008
Close encounter with MUMPS
I just read part of a blog on thedailywtf that brings back memories.
When I got laid off from my first programming job in Dallas back in 1990, I went to several interviews looking for a job. One of the interviews was with a company (I don't remember the name but I think it was in Plano) that was looking for a MUMPS programmer. No MUMPS experience necessary.
The interview was one of the few I've had where I was interviewed by the project leader and the developers at the same time. The interview went well. They always had to train newly hired programmers on MUMPS since it was a fairly rare language.
They called me later to offer me the job. I think I was offered around $30k. Luckily though, I had gotten an offer from the Dallas Times Herald for more money and using the same stuff I was used to using (HP-3000, Cobol, Powerhouse, etc). So I turned them down.
The DTH gig was great, until the Dallas Morning News parent company bought the DTH 16 months later and I got laid off again.
When I got laid off from my first programming job in Dallas back in 1990, I went to several interviews looking for a job. One of the interviews was with a company (I don't remember the name but I think it was in Plano) that was looking for a MUMPS programmer. No MUMPS experience necessary.
The interview was one of the few I've had where I was interviewed by the project leader and the developers at the same time. The interview went well. They always had to train newly hired programmers on MUMPS since it was a fairly rare language.
They called me later to offer me the job. I think I was offered around $30k. Luckily though, I had gotten an offer from the Dallas Times Herald for more money and using the same stuff I was used to using (HP-3000, Cobol, Powerhouse, etc). So I turned them down.
The DTH gig was great, until the Dallas Morning News parent company bought the DTH 16 months later and I got laid off again.
Thursday, September 11, 2008
How I got started in Programming
I've read a couple of posts on the Object Mentor Blog (home of Brett Schuchert) and thought I'd do the same.
In high school (1977-1980), I heard that the other high school in town had a computer class. I wasn't much interested in computers and definitely didn't want to go to a class across town.
I wanted to get out of the house after graduation so bad that I went to summer school at NSU. (I had it really good at home, I was just ready to be on my own). In the Orientation class, one of the things we did was go talk to a representative of the college we were interested in majoring in. I knew I wanted to do something in business. I really hated accounting, marketing, managing, and sales so I wasn't sure what I was gonna do. The representative that talked to us we Gene Kozlowski. He taught computer science classes. He talked about the different majors in the business college and then started talking about computers. It sounded pretty good. That is when I decided to major in Computer and Information Science with a business emphasis. I figured I could eventually make $30k to $40k which sounded really good. :-)
My first computer class that fall was Basic. We used HP-3000 Basic and I sucked. I don't remember the grade I got but I had a really hard time understanding what to do to get a program to work. That spring I took Fortran and it clicked. I did pretty well in Fortran and gained a lot of confidance. I eventually took Cobol I and II, AI (Lisp), Data Structures (Pascal), and a database course where we used Condor.
My first job out of college was at a really small shop in Garland, Texas. I was the computer operator on an HP-3000 series 68. I also did some programming when I had time. They were using Quiz/Qtp/Quick (a Powerhouse/Cognos product) and RPG. I got pretty good at the Powerhouse stuff. Eventually, I became a programmer and helped with operations when necessary.
When that place closed, I found a job at the Dallas Times Herald using Powerhouse.
When that place closed, I found a job in North Carolina at Revlon using Cobol, Powerhouse, and eventually SAP.
I got tired of spending my 2 weeks vacation driving home to Oklahoma so I found a job in Okc doing Cobol, some Powerhouse, and now Java.
I've been out of college 21 years now and have been lucky enough to be employed for all but about 3 months. I still love to write code.
In high school (1977-1980), I heard that the other high school in town had a computer class. I wasn't much interested in computers and definitely didn't want to go to a class across town.
I wanted to get out of the house after graduation so bad that I went to summer school at NSU. (I had it really good at home, I was just ready to be on my own). In the Orientation class, one of the things we did was go talk to a representative of the college we were interested in majoring in. I knew I wanted to do something in business. I really hated accounting, marketing, managing, and sales so I wasn't sure what I was gonna do. The representative that talked to us we Gene Kozlowski. He taught computer science classes. He talked about the different majors in the business college and then started talking about computers. It sounded pretty good. That is when I decided to major in Computer and Information Science with a business emphasis. I figured I could eventually make $30k to $40k which sounded really good. :-)
My first computer class that fall was Basic. We used HP-3000 Basic and I sucked. I don't remember the grade I got but I had a really hard time understanding what to do to get a program to work. That spring I took Fortran and it clicked. I did pretty well in Fortran and gained a lot of confidance. I eventually took Cobol I and II, AI (Lisp), Data Structures (Pascal), and a database course where we used Condor.
My first job out of college was at a really small shop in Garland, Texas. I was the computer operator on an HP-3000 series 68. I also did some programming when I had time. They were using Quiz/Qtp/Quick (a Powerhouse/Cognos product) and RPG. I got pretty good at the Powerhouse stuff. Eventually, I became a programmer and helped with operations when necessary.
When that place closed, I found a job at the Dallas Times Herald using Powerhouse.
When that place closed, I found a job in North Carolina at Revlon using Cobol, Powerhouse, and eventually SAP.
I got tired of spending my 2 weeks vacation driving home to Oklahoma so I found a job in Okc doing Cobol, some Powerhouse, and now Java.
I've been out of college 21 years now and have been lucky enough to be employed for all but about 3 months. I still love to write code.
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