What Do You Do For Work?

[bedraggled]

Vinny,

Also from AWB- Cut The Cake.

Since you were wondering.

[Libertarian666]

To get back to the original question if no one minds.

I'm a software developer. I wrote my first program in FORTRAN II in 1965.

My current project is related to the new "persistent memory" devices that were first released to the general public this year. It's a means of making these devices easier to use for certain "big data" applications that need access to enormous amounts of data by key so the programmer doesn't have to figure out where the data is stored.

[vnatale]

To get back to the original question if no one minds.

I'm a software developer. I wrote my first program in FORTRAN II in 1965.

My current project is related to the new "persistent memory" devices that were first released to the general public this year. It's a means of making these devices easier to use for certain "big data" applications that need access to enormous amounts of data by key so the programmer doesn't have to figure out where the data is stored.

And, you wrote that program using keypunch cards? When I took my first computer science class as a freshman in 1969 the language was Fortran (what number in that years?) and we used keypunch cards. I remember if you got your cards in quite early in the morning you could get your results later in the day to find out you'd left out yet one more "," or ")".

You did that in 1965 as a student or an employee?

Vinny

[Libertarian666]

To get back to the original question if no one minds.

I'm a software developer. I wrote my first program in FORTRAN II in 1965.

My current project is related to the new "persistent memory" devices that were first released to the general public this year. It's a means of making these devices easier to use for certain "big data" applications that need access to enormous amounts of data by key so the programmer doesn't have to figure out where the data is stored.

And, you wrote that program using keypunch cards? When I took my first computer science class as a freshman in 1969 the language was Fortran (what number in that years?) and we used keypunch cards. I remember if you got your cards in quite early in the morning you could get your results later in the day to find out you'd left out yet one more "," or ")".

You did that in 1965 as a student or an employee?

Vinny

Yes, I keypunched my program. At night we could use the IBM 1620, which was a single-user machine so we didn't have to wait for the batch operators to return our syntax errors to us.

I was a student on a National Science Foundation summer program grant at Southern Illinois University. I was 16.

[Mountaineer]

What do I do for work? What is work? If you enjoy what you do it isn't work in the normal sense! How do I spend my God-given time on earth? Attend church, volunteer, love and help my wife, read and listen to podcasts with an emphasis on Christian history and theology, visit and enjoy meals with friends and family, travel, yard work, interact with my iPhone and MacBook, and much, much more. I'm a joyfull retired Chemical Engineer. If you don't believe this, just ask me.

FORTRAN and keypunch cards .... that's a memory and not one of my more pleasant ones. I believe we used an IBM 360 at the University data center.

Anyone remember Wang calculators? A large unit with 4 connected wired terminals for our classroom. I believe the professor said it cost $10,000.

[drumminj]

Software developer here as well. Front-end/UI, web, data visualization, etc. Most visible work is probably the programming environment/IDE for Lego Mindstorms robotics kit.

Not old enough to have played with punch cards, but I did learn to program with Borland Turbo Pascal...

[WiseOne]

Not a software developer here :-) I'm a medical researcher in an academic medical center, minimally active clinically. Thankfully...my colleagues who are primarily or 100% clinical are absolutely miserable.

I remember the FORTRAN and punch card days! I majored in engineering in college, and the field I'm in now is mostly populated by researchers with a physics or engineering background. So it worked out nicely.

[mathjak107]

I actually started out as an Hvac refrigeration tech ...I went to apex technical school the year it opened ... hated that profession...everything required a ladder and heavy stuff going up to a roof or down in to a hot machine room ...

Eventually I migrated in to troubleshooting the complex mall climate control systems , that was far more interesting...

From there I drifted more in to selling and designing custom control panels for the water pumping and sewage treatment industry.

I spent decades doing that right until I retired..today I teach one day a week for an electrical distributor of drives and controls

[Tyler]

No punch cards, but I was in the last graduating engineering class at college where FORTRAN was the default language used in the various programming classes. Luckily I was a mechanical engineer, so people were just excited that I understood code at all.

I'm a new product designer. Part mechanical engineering, part industrial design. And also part time. Honestly I get just as much creative reward from my portfolio analysis stuff these days. Not everything productive has to be about work.

[mathjak107]

My default language in school was pig Latin .....I used to speak skank fluently

[dualstow]

Software developer here as well. Front-end/UI, web, data visualization, etc. Most visible work is probably the programming environment/IDE for Lego Mindstorms robotics kit.

Wow! I’ve got a couple nephews who were big fans. Er, cousins. They seem like nephews.

[foglifter]

Another techie here.

After many years in software development I moved into information security (more specifically, application security) a decade ago and I've never regretted my decision. This is still a niche area and demand is growing exponentially as these days every company is a software company. The reality is if your business have any online presence you will be attacked by hackers, and the outcome of these attacks will depend on whether your have a solid security program. Everyone I know in the field is happily employed and hiring is super hard. Employers are willing to pay premium for experienced security engineers, I'd say security engineers are pretty much at the top of the food chain in IT.

Also, I'm working remotely and don't have to deal with traffic. So the work/life balance is outstanding.

[Cortopassi]

Electrical engineer, digital circuit design. Most notable, was the hardware manager for Palm's Chicago design center from 1999-2003.

Remember Palm? At that time, more references to "Palm Pilot" on TV than you even hear nowadays about iPhone. Palm should have been where Apple is. They completely blew it.

Day to day now still doing hardware and PCB design. I couldn't deal with being a manager. I was a good one, but it stressed me out.

Now: www.anetd.com and www.digidescorp.com, for the past 13 years.

[vnatale]

Another techie here.

After many years in software development I moved into information security (more specifically, application security) a decade ago and I've never regretted my decision. This is still a niche area and demand is growing exponentially as these days every company is a software company. The reality is if your business have any online presence you will be attacked by hackers, and the outcome of these attacks will depend on whether your have a solid security program. Everyone I know in the field is happily employed and hiring is super hard. Employers are willing to pay premium for experienced security engineers, I'd say security engineers are pretty much at the top of the food chain in IT.

Also, I'm working remotely and don't have to deal with traffic. So the work/life balance is outstanding.

This past week, I read this book: https://smile.amazon.com/Kingdom-Lies-U ... l_huc_item Kingdom of Lies: Unnerving Adventures in the World of Cybercrime

Mainly about the people you are fighting. But also, some about people like you.

Vinny

[Kriegsspiel]

the only thing that does hit the sore spots is twirling sticks so no twirling .

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G2S_KIErBWc

I rest my case.

[Smith1776]

the only thing that does hit the sore spots is twirling sticks so no twirling .

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G2S_KIErBWc

I rest my case.

Dude.... WTF.

I opened that link... and my iTunes happened to be playing that EXACT same song at the same time.

Creepy.

[Kriegsspiel]

Dude.... WTF.

I opened that link... and my iTunes happened to be playing that EXACT same song at the same time.

Creepy.

[doodle]

Full time mustachian.

As for work, whatever I could do. I've gutted and renovated houses, taught classes, land speculated, parked cars, written local newspaper articles, fixed bikes, washed windows, scrubbed gyms, taken care of dogs, run driving range. None of it glamorous, many times demeaning, almost all of it (90 percent) driven by fear and desire for security through money. I've had mediocre returns but been lucky in terms of my health. Im going into fourth decade and have amassed enough to take care of myself by living cheap. Currently transitioning to ski bum and maybe street busking for a bit with girlfriend.

[Smith1776]

I'm happy to see many other tech folks here on the board. I'm still on the young-ish side, and really it's only been in the past year that I've settled on the field of computer science as something to dedicate my professional life to. I mean, throughout my life I've had other moments where I thought I'd take on a particular field of choice as a career, but this is the first one that has really "felt right".

I'm currently specializing in Ruby on Rails back end with Javascript/React on the front end for web development. I've recently taken to learning more about security and white hat hacking. Again, this is Craig's influence at work.

The ultimate dream of course... is the TURING AWARD. Aim high, my friends!