Date   : Wed, 03 Nov 2010 05:07:18 +0100
From   : rick@... (Rick Murray)
Subject: No wonder CompSci graduates are unemployed

On 02/11/2010 18:55, Farlie A wrote:

> How many CS Graduates these days when faced with the absence of a
> particular tool, would go back to the prehistoric reference manuals and
> write their own tools?

Or think of obscene ideas like bit-bashing IIC over a parallel port, and 
then "make it so".


> How many CS Graduates would sit down and analyse configuration files,

I got fed up with the uboot tool on my OSD because it didn't understand:
   ubootcmd get *
so in the end I looked at the dmesg output and found that the config 
stuff was the second mounted partition on the flash, so I then used:
   head -n 999 /dev/mtdmount2 > ubootcmd.txt
Of course it was null terminated lines so I needed to fire up the hex 
editor and [00] -> [0a].
If I could get an ELF-compatible ARM assembler enviro set up, I think 
ten lines of C would have done all of that directly. But, hey...

[...and how many CS Grads followed what was going on here? ;-) ]


> because the installer decided to stop working properly on a newer system?
> (I've had old Windows 3.xx installers fail on 98 , despite a claim of
> compatibility..)

I've had XP installers fail because it looks for stuff in an /xp subdir 
when it is actually /nt. Don't people bother to test this sort of stuff? 
It's a royal PITA to trace through and installer script to do it by hand.


> (Readers of BOFH need not respond.)

Awww, you're taking the fun out of it.



Real life examples:

1. Proprietary database, runs in DOS, saves in mangled weird unknown
    format. Does _NOT_ export without a ?250 add-on which nobody is
    willing to pay for.
    New database is FoxPro/Access/generic MS stuff. Imports the usual
    range (CSV, dBase, etc).
    Oh, and we need it done by Thursday, which gives you +/- 48 hours to
    think of a solution, implement it, test it, use it, check results,
    and deliver.


2. Old DOS proggy outputs to LPT1 in HP LaserJet II format. We need it
    as PDFs.


3. Here is a set of scanned slides. Each scan contains multiple photos.
    Take these scans and build a publicity website to sell them. Make it
    extensible as the actual set of photos to go on the site has not been
    determined, nor has the arrangement of them.




And now for my answers:

1. In REALTIME, directed DOS printer to serial port. Null-modem cable to 
my Acorn box. I entered "Reporter" mode on the proprietary database and 
just stepped through looking at each entry, hitting PrntScn to capture a 
screenshot of it. The Acorn box (using an SP_dual) accepted the 
"printed" data into a large array, pulled out the data, built CSV from 
it, and packaged it all up into X-modem blocks which it transmitted (via 
other serial port) to the destination PC (in another town) for loading 
into FoxPro.
Worked first time. Yes, I'm bragging. Who wouldn't? ;-)

2. "Print" to RiscPC with dodgy bit of veroboard (holy s***, hardware 
too!?) to join two parallel ports). RiscPC ran a simple BASIC proggy to 
interpret the LJ commands and build a sprite. These sprites were then 
dropped into OvationPro pages, and PostScript made up from it. The PS 
was taken to a PC and converted to a PDF (as it's a real slow process on 
a RiscPC).

3. All done on a PC - cut out the images to a fixed size (after making 
sure they were properly aligned). Allowed tweaks for the scanner's 
contrast being the wrong side of lame. These were dropped in a directory 
with a name, and an associated description file written in a format that 
would, a decade later, be recognised as XML, though I'd never heard if 
it at that time. :-) Then to a dead simple program thrown together in 
TurboC that read the image descriptions and built up the website based 
upon a script and the image 'tags'. Heh, these days I'd probably have 
tried doing it in realtime in PHP. Still, it coped with the guy who 
couldn't make his mind up and it built the site without any tweaks to 
the code (the script was horrible, but I'd had the foresight to do 
support stuff like "no, I want the menu over here and I want it to be 
big, and red, and blinky, and have things that glow because... because I 
said so..."). <sigh>



And what do *I* do for a job? About as far from IT as you can get. Ditto 
my previous job. And....


Best wishes,

Rick.

-- 
Rick Murray, eeePC901 & ADSL WiFI'd into it, all ETLAs!
BBC B: DNFS, 2 x 5.25" floppies, EPROM prog, Acorn TTX
E01S FileStore, A3000/A5000/RiscPC/various PCs/blahblah...