On Thu, 30 Dec 2010 17:30:27 -0600, "
wrote:

On Thu, 30 Dec 2010 16:06:21 -0600, Vic Smith
wrote:



Right, but business IT is a small corner of the world of programming. A
rather important corner for IBM, however, who still like PL/I (and
derivatives) quite a lot. ;-)


I highly doubt that. Most of us engage in many business transactions
every day.
Just guessing, but my estimate is 90% of programming is
business/finance related.

One of the C programmers under my umbrella when I was an account
manager, and whose technical skills I respected, told me it was a dead
end, since the functions had all been written, and that's where the
"fun" was. That was mid-nineties.

"All the functions have been written" is rather like "everything that can be
invented, has".


He was a nerd that way, but I saw his point.
There are only so many common math functions used in business.
That's not to say new processing needs don't arise or the work ends.
He just found doing anything twice boring.
And IT is basically repetition of the same concepts over and over.
You get some new stuff now and then, like new database structures and
access language, OOB and the like, most recently html and .net, blah,
blah.
I was working SAP data warehouse and ABAP when I retired, but wasn't
young enough to be excited about it.
Same old. Input, move, tweak and present data.
BTW, SAP is a fast-spreading German enterprise-wide IT solution, and
the Indians have 2 legs up on running it.
They train in India assiduously. Don't know if the Indian government
has a hand in IT training, but the Indians sure have a plan and a goal
to employ as many in IT as possible.
I see nothing like that here in the U.S.
Despite rampant unemployment.
In fact the U.S. corporate trend is to continue offshoring work,
Obama's bull**** notwithstanding.


Everything I did was assembler, Cobol, and a smattering of other
languages that got sold to IT managers as the latest panacea.
A preferred language is often just tradition or "religion."

No issues with that.

I could do any mathematical function in COBOL that Fortran could do
by making a subprogram call.

Wrong. By your own admission you don't even touch a huge area of mathematics.

Believe me, you don't need to know higher math in business IT.
That's what mathematicians and accountants are for.
All you have to do is put their formulae in code and test it.
They wouldn't have it any other way.

Again, not the point. I'm sure you're very good at what you do.


I see what you're saying there, and you're correct.
But I didn't mean to imply that COBOL and Fortran are equal, or that
business processing touches all the scientific math areas.
My point was more to how languages gain fans in their own communities,
and that Fortran could easily be replaced by COBOL with calls to
assembler sub-routines. No Fortran at all in the mix.
But why bother disturbing Fortran fans? If it's working for them
that's good enough.

General Engineering. Don't ask me what they do.

Design armys? ;-)


hehe. I recommended he join the FBI when he got his degree.
He looked at me like I was crazy.


Right. That accounts for real 15% unemployment.

There is a big difference between manufacturing and manufacturing employment.
The US manufactures more than it ever has. Manufacturing is a lower
percentage of employment, however, as one would expect.

http://www.uschina.org/public/docume...ufacturing.pdf


You can twist figures however you want.
This might be of interest.
http://www.ourfuture.org/blog-entry/...ing-losing-out


You're far more cynical than I.


More like realistic.

No, cynical.

I'll cop to skeptical. That's it.

I was a steelworker, autoworker and had other mfg jobs before I went
into IT. Saw the writing on the wall.

Sure. Unions are dead, except those on the public dole.


Unions were a part of it.

They're the single reason the auto and steel industries are all but dead. "All
but", only because of domestic non-union car manufacturing.


Sure. The GM engineers were designing quality products, and GM
management was taking good care of customers.
It was all the workers fault with their evil unions.
Bet you liked your Chevy Vega except for the worker labor part.
BTW, my first job out of the Navy in '67 was at U.S. Steel South
works.

Now look at salaries, benefits, and union productivity obstacles, not to
mention union thuggery. It was *not* all management's fault that GM sank.
...and it will continue, perhaps even more rapidly now.

Same union at Ford, but huge difference in outcome.
"Union thuggery." Funny.
You going to trot out a story about how your dad was beaten with
baseball bats because he refused to strike.
Already heard that one.

Decrepit blast furnaces while the rest of the world had moved to BOP.
The millwrights I worked with could shave babbitt bearings and the
sweethearting Steelworkers union got them all of 3 bucks an hour.
There was a book written how the CEO drove that company to ruin.

A lot of that is tax policy, too, as well as union work rules.

After that I went to IH building dozers and dealt with the management
incompetence there. Another place that went bust, but I won't bore
you with my personal observations.
They involve production and the QC thereof, so don't count..
A book was written about how Archie McCardle drove IH to ruin too.
Never read either book, but since I was at both places as a
Steelworker and Autoworker I guess it was all my fault and I got the
blame. *******s.

You see nothing that the unions did wrong here?


Nope. There were never fat wages at U.S. Steel or IH.
Just incompetent management. I was there.
No "work rule" impediments either.
Biggest difference was when a foreman at U.S. Steel told you do
something that would get you killed, you might do it.
At IH you would tell the foreman to go **** himself.
Nothing wrong with that "work rule" to me.
Details upon request.


But most of the non-union manufacturing is gone too.

No, it's not. It's just different.


You mean just because "Made in China" is stamped on damn near
everything a consumer buys, it's different?
Okay, I'll go along with that.

Oh, cut the bull****. We were talking about US manufacturing. There are a
*LOT* of cars made by non-union shops, right here in the US and quite
competitively


You get off the union bull****. I was talking manufacturing and now
you're ragging on unions.
Plenty of non-union manufacturing was offshored.
First off I only buy union made cars, because I like Chevys.
No choice.
But most Chevys are union-made - in Canada, a foreign country.
I guess I could buy a German or Jap union-made import, or a non-union
one made here, but I'm sticking with Chevys.
Anyway cars aren't a big expense for me since I get them used and
cheap. My car costs don't even come close to $300 a year.
I wrench and so does my kid.
I just got off the phone ordering a Mexican-made Kenmore fridge for
$700 to replace the $500 Mexican-made fridge I bought about 5 years
ago and which just started making serious noise today..
A Mexican fridge for a Mexican fridge.
A few years ago I spent $600 on a Mexican GE washer and another $200
on a warranty for it.
Earlier this year I spent about a $1000 in computer components to
build a new box.
Nothing made in the U.S.
I probably spent $1000 this year on various electronic gifts for my
kids.
Nothing made in the U.S.
Spent a few hundred on power tools. None U.S.made.
Got a U.S. made nail set and hammer. Big whoop.
My next expense will be a flat screen TV.
Probably another $500 for small, at least $1000 for big..
Tell me where to find one made in the U.S.
Anybody can read a balance of trade chart for manufactured goods.

As you see if you read the article above, some of U.S. manufacturing
is non-tradeble products.
So I buy U.S. made toilet paper. All the junk mail I get is U.S.
made. That's all part of your American "manufacturing" claim.
I don't have the figures on tradable vs. non-tradable, but it's easy
to read balance of trade charts for manufactured goods.
Don't need to though when you can see everything you're buying is made
elsewhere.
Where the hell are you getting U.S made products besides Jap and
German cars made here?
You buying Boeing airplanes?
Good on you.
But you might soon be buying Chinese airplanes. Non-union made.


The biggest part was U.S companies could get cheap labor offshore, and
better management that paid attention to quality.

You've obviously never dealt with offshore production.


You might notice that imported items are getting higher marks than
Ford, GM and Chrysler in general.
That boat has sailed.

A lot of those "imported items" are not.


Easy claim to make, but if there's no U.S. made counterpart to compare
against what's the difference?
You don't have a choice.
Ok, I'm done with this. It never goes anywhere.
You take the last shots.

--Vic