Comments on: Confessions of a Maintenance Programmer http://www.infovark.com/2007/12/14/confessions-of-a-maintenance-programmer/ Digging the world of Enterprise 2.0 Thu, 20 Nov 2008 19:52:45 +0000 http://wordpress.org/?v=2.6 By: Tools: Beyond Compare 3 « Infovark Underground http://www.infovark.com/2007/12/14/confessions-of-a-maintenance-programmer/#comment-268 Tools: Beyond Compare 3 « Infovark Underground Wed, 27 Aug 2008 17:37:13 +0000 http://www.infovark.com/2007/12/14/confessions-of-a-maintenance-programmer/#comment-268 [...] my roots in maintenance programming, I’ve used a wide assortment of programming tools. Maintaining legacy code is not much fun. [...] [...] my roots in maintenance programming, I’ve used a wide assortment of programming tools. Maintaining legacy code is not much fun. [...]

]]> By: Fighting the Framework « Infovark Underground http://www.infovark.com/2007/12/14/confessions-of-a-maintenance-programmer/#comment-179 Fighting the Framework « Infovark Underground Tue, 06 May 2008 01:51:28 +0000 http://www.infovark.com/2007/12/14/confessions-of-a-maintenance-programmer/#comment-179 [...] I’ve mentioned previously, I’m someone who likes his code logical and tidy. While I’m just as guilty of playing the F5 game (a.k.a. “try it and see”) as any [...] [...] I’ve mentioned previously, I’m someone who likes his code logical and tidy. While I’m just as guilty of playing the F5 game (a.k.a. “try it and see”) as any [...]

]]> By: Ben Tremblay http://www.infovark.com/2007/12/14/confessions-of-a-maintenance-programmer/#comment-81 Ben Tremblay Wed, 06 Feb 2008 03:58:07 +0000 http://www.infovark.com/2007/12/14/confessions-of-a-maintenance-programmer/#comment-81 p.s. Our avionics project was a microwave landing system ... R&D shortly before GPS came out ... fly a plane past the decision point in a blizzard and have it miss the squishy stuff on either side of the tarmac. Mandate #1: thou shalt not transmit false data. If the data's there, then the data's good. If the data's not good, the pilots get silence. Anywhoo, that called for a lot of realtime monitoring (no biggie) and equally realtime signal analysis (holy.shiet.you.must.be.kidding) ... and BuiltIn TestEquipment. (Shall we go with AI? or fall back on expert system *Yoikz! Zounds! Gadzooks!*) There was a lotta stuff happening every second. Which meant some heavy-duty programming of the best programmable devices available. My buddy Harv was a whiz. I mean a wizzard. I mean really. Dewd wrote C and assembler that hopped and popped and jumped and spun ... truly impressive. We had to let him go. He got a job with some sorta Navy SigInt project. And everyone was glad for that. We couldn't keep him. We could read his code. We just couldn't undertand it. He was that good. It was mind-bendingly dense ... parsimonious to the point of cryptic. And that was the catch. I'll always remember Harv. "Unmaintainable" but brilliant. p.s. Our avionics project was a microwave landing system … R&D shortly before GPS came out … fly a plane past the decision point in a blizzard and have it miss the squishy stuff on either side of the tarmac.
Mandate #1: thou shalt not transmit false data. If the data’s there, then the data’s good. If the data’s not good, the pilots get silence.

Anywhoo, that called for a lot of realtime monitoring (no biggie) and equally realtime signal analysis (holy.shiet.you.must.be.kidding) … and BuiltIn TestEquipment. (Shall we go with AI? or fall back on expert system *Yoikz! Zounds! Gadzooks!*)

There was a lotta stuff happening every second. Which meant some heavy-duty programming of the best programmable devices available.

My buddy Harv was a whiz. I mean a wizzard. I mean really. Dewd wrote C and assembler that hopped and popped and jumped and spun … truly impressive.
We had to let him go.
He got a job with some sorta Navy SigInt project. And everyone was glad for that.
We couldn’t keep him.
We could read his code.
We just couldn’t undertand it.
He was that good.
It was mind-bendingly dense … parsimonious to the point of cryptic. And that was the catch.

I’ll always remember Harv. “Unmaintainable” but brilliant.

]]> By: Ben Tremblay http://www.infovark.com/2007/12/14/confessions-of-a-maintenance-programmer/#comment-80 Ben Tremblay Wed, 06 Feb 2008 03:51:25 +0000 http://www.infovark.com/2007/12/14/confessions-of-a-maintenance-programmer/#comment-80 heh ... I do "maintenance" on technical documents. Also on broadcast station studios. And long distance telephone systems. And 4000 mile-long SAC/NORAD troposcatter systems. I've made a living cleanup up <i>engineers' <b>gack</b></i>. ;-P heh … I do “maintenance” on technical documents. Also on broadcast station studios. And long distance telephone systems. And 4000 mile-long SAC/NORAD troposcatter systems.

I’ve made a living cleanup up engineers’ gack.
;-P

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