"Dying Traditions of boomers"

[WaikikiFirst]

Out geek THAT!

not that I think it does outgeek that, but who else ever had to take a course in APL?
My word, what a waste of time. On Day 1, I knew it was a waste. On the last day, I wanted to throw the prof out the window. It was obvious it was the only thing he was esp good at and he, and he alone, had somehow managed to make it a requirement for the degree.
APL may win the award for "Most Powerful Programming Language Ever Invented To Do The Fewest Possible Things"

 

[Ralph Sir Edward]

not that I think it does outgeek that, but who else ever had to take a course in APL?
My word, what a waste of time. On Day 1, I knew it was a waste. On the last day, I wanted to throw the prof out the window. It was obvious it was the only thing he was esp good at and he, and he alone, had somehow managed to make it a requirement for the degree.
APL may win the award for "Most Powerful Programming Language Ever Invented To Do The Fewest Possible Things"

Known widely as a "write once", "read never" language.

 

[HitchHiker71]

Visual Basic 6.0 and C++ (some version) were what I had to use in college. Probably less useful than Fortran would have been in my job.

I learned Basic and Pascal early on, then VB and C, followed by C++ before I got more into app level scripting using LotusScript, VBScript, Powershell, etc. In college I learned Pascal and LISP - otherwise affectionately known as Lost In a Series of Parentheses.

 

[ScoopKona]

If only the "parking pass" people weren't sometimes a PITA.

Tell them this, precisely: "DNQ me, I'm an OPC for [some timeshare company]."

They won't give presentations to people who are in the business.

 

[jp10558]

I learned Basic and Pascal early on, then VB and C, followed by C++ before I got more into app level scripting using LotusScript, VBScript, Powershell, etc. In college I learned Pascal and LISP - otherwise affectionately known as Lost In a Series of Parentheses.

I ended up in college moving on to bash scripting on Red Hat, then at work I grabbed AutoIT which was basically a free version of VB6 for my use cases anyway lol. To this day I tend to use AutoIT on Windows and bash on Linux cause they still work like a lowest common denominator. Though at this point I tend to use one of the AI tools to generate my script to then massage into use lol.

 

[DrQ]

Took FORTRAN and IBM Assembly programming.

NASTRAN was written in FORTRAN which was compiled into assembly. From there, you could examine the assembly code to tighten up the code to reduce the run times.

When I got into PC's, I picked up C. I tried machine coding on PC's, but only 4 registers, just was too limiting when I had been working with 16.

At work, we had APOLLO computers, which were based on PASCAL, but I never got the hang of it. APOLLO faded into tech dust.

I made the transition to SUN and Linux based systems and stayed in the C realm since.

 

[slip]

It wouldn't be an old duffers thread talking about computers without mentioning FORTRAN.

 

[tombanjo]

 

[amycurl]

These aren't only traditions of boomers, there is another entire generation in there which I am part of, GenX. Why didn't we get a fancy name?

Because there are, like, ten of us. Whatever.

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[Ralph Sir Edward]

Took FORTRAN and IBM Assembly programming.

NASTRAN was written in FORTRAN which was compiled into assembly. From there, you could examine the assembly code to tighten up the code to reduce the run times.

When I got into PC's, I picked up C. I tried machine coding on PC's, but only 4 registers, just was too limiting when I had been working with 16.

At work, we had APOLLO computers, which were based on PASCAL, but I never got the hang of it. APOLLO faded into tech dust.

I made the transition to SUN and Linux based systems and stayed in the C realm since.

C. C code. Run C code. Run, dammit, run!!!

 

[Brett]

Because there are, like, ten of us. Whatever.



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[dougp26364]

I have not read the entire 4 pages, but the things I can think of Boomers did that aren’t done now are

1. Write letters
2 read newspapers
3. Send Christmas cards
4. Go for long drives on Sundays just to go for a drive.
5. Sunday family dinners (fried chicken, mashed potatoes and gravy and green beans anyone?)
6. Sit out on the porch in the evening.
7. Visit with neighbors

These are the things I can think of that we just don’t do anymore. I gave up on Christmas cards a few years ago since I’d send them but never get them.

 

[pedro47]

Write Thank You Notes

 

[SmithOp]

My favorite was SAS proc this, proc that. The JCL to load the data sets was harder than the SAS code. I produced many reports for engineers, they thought I was a whiz I could slice and dice data so quickly. I wonder how many trees I killed producing greenbar reports.

 

[davidvel]

Docusign

I've not used a fax machine in the past 30 years

Docusign (DS) is one of the biggest jokes in modern technology. It claims to create "secure" signing for electronic signatures. All you need to do is sent it to AN email address and the recipient can sign. Anyone can create an email address to be used. I have signed contractual documents, HIPAA waivers, property contracts, other agreements and a myriad of documents on behalf of family members or others (with their permission, but who knows this). I know unscrupulous attorneys that have signed settlement agreements on behalf of their clients.

DS makes it seem like it is some superior method of "verifying" and obtaining a "secure" signature (though you can just type your name and they convert to script), and add all sorts of gobbledegook letter and number strings to make it look official.

 

[Brett]

Docusign (DS) is one of the biggest jokes in modern technology. It claims to create "secure" signing for electronic signatures. All you need to do is sent it to AN email address and the recipient can sign. Anyone can create an email address to be used. I have signed contractual documents, HIPAA waivers, property contracts, other agreements and a myriad of documents on behalf of family members or others (with their permission, but who knows this). I know unscrupulous attorneys that have signed settlement agreements on behalf of their clients.

DS makes it seem like it is some superior method of "verifying" and obtaining a "secure" signature (though you can just type your name and they convert to script), and add all sorts of gobbledegook letter and number strings to make it look official.

Apparently a lot of people are in on the "joke" but I suppose if fax machines are the new hottest Christmas gift this year then yes, faxing emails will be making a miraculous comeback

 

[dioxide45]

Docusign (DS) is one of the biggest jokes in modern technology. It claims to create "secure" signing for electronic signatures. All you need to do is sent it to AN email address and the recipient can sign. Anyone can create an email address to be used. I have signed contractual documents, HIPAA waivers, property contracts, other agreements and a myriad of documents on behalf of family members or others (with their permission, but who knows this). I know unscrupulous attorneys that have signed settlement agreements on behalf of their clients.

DS makes it seem like it is some superior method of "verifying" and obtaining a "secure" signature (though you can just type your name and they convert to script), and add all sorts of gobbledegook letter and number strings to make it look official.

True, at least a signature on a faxed document can be compared to another signature of the person for verification. I wonder if DocuSign is what is leading to more cases of home title theft?

 

[davidvel]

True, at least a signature on a faxed document can be compared to another signature of the person for verification. I wonder if DocuSign is what is leading to more cases of home title theft?

Property transer documents need to be notarized. Probably need a notary on the take.

 

[davidvel]

Apparently a lot of people are in on the "joke" but I suppose if fax machines are the new hottest Christmas gift this year then yes, faxing emails will be making a miraculous comeback

Yes it is shocking. It is like those activities/athletics that have a person sign a waiver online. There is no way to know who signed it. Lots of cases where kids admit they put their parent's name, and the waiver is invalidated by the court.

 

[BJRSanDiego]

A telephone booth that uses coins and a full service gas station, that has an attendant to pump your gasoline and check your oil and tires (for free).

The last time that I was on the Big Island of Hawaii about 5 years ago, I stopped at a service station to get gas and started to pump and the attendant came out and told me that it was against the law to pump my own gas. So, there may still a few pockets of holdouts. But I agree with your point. When I was going to college I had a variety of jobs including pumping gas.

 

[pedro47]

boomers knew how to write their full name and not print it liked today’s generations or make an X for their name. LOL

 

[isisdave]

Known widely as a "write once", "read never" language.

I had a summer job at IBM maybe in 1969, and the office had an APL terminal that was actually a Selectric typewriter with a VERY unique typeball. I didn't have a lot of experience at the time, but it didn't seem to have a way to do much I/O. Later I had a class with four programming languages; two were COBOL (I went on to write compilers for that) and LISP. The third was Algol, and original DW used that on some mainframe at NY state DOT. Don't remember the other one.

Later, about 1985, I got involved with programming some sort of handheld microterminal in Forth, a reverse Polish language. I begged for six months to program it in C instead before management relented, mostly because there were no programming or debugging utilities, and the only other person willing to program in Forth had an addiction problem. I might have been heading in that direction ...

I classify these three as "solutions in search of a problem."

 

[bizaro86]

The last time that I was on the Big Island of Hawaii about 5 years ago, I stopped at a service station to get gas and started to pump and the attendant came out and told me that it was against the law to pump my own gas. So, there may still a few pockets of holdouts. But I agree with your point. When I was going to college I had a variety of jobs including pumping gas.

Interesting. I find that surprising as I've pumped my own gas every single time on the big island, although I've only ever filled up in Kona, Waikoloa, Waimea and Hilo.

 

[WaikikiFirst]

boomers knew how to write their full name and not print it liked today’s generations

look at my son's handwriting and then give thanks for printing

 

[easyrider]

Interesting. I find that surprising as I've pumped my own gas every single time on the big island, although I've only ever filled up in Kona, Waikoloa, Waimea and Hilo.

We usually gas up at Costco on any Hawaiian Island and have always pumped our own gas. There are some full service gas stations in Hawaii where they actually pump the gas. It isn't a law but rather a policy of the station I guess.

Bill