On 11/10/2019 03:23 AM, Vic Smith wrote:
On Sat, 9 Nov 2019 23:40:37 -0700, rbowman wrote:



Yeah, I'm a dinosaur and I never quite got the whole service economy
thing. Gates, or I should say Microsoft, does create software. Even that
is very intangible. I've been in the software game for about 40 years
and I'm not sure anything I've done was all that necessary or even had a
positive effect.

I spent 30 years writing code. I doubt there's a line of it in use today.
A bricklayer's work lasts for generations. But I didn't want to be a bricklayer.


I semi-retired when I was about 40 and spent a year as a Forest Service
volunteer at a ranger station that was the home of the Northern Region's
pack stock. I designed a couple of self cleaning irrigation diversion
dams, helped to build a couple of mountain bike trails, worked on a
nature trail, and the educational trail at the visitors center. The guys
I worked with are retired or dead but I still go out and wander around.
Some of the signage has been replaced as it deteriorated in the last 30
years, but the stock tanks, ditches, and so forth are still there.

I found it very satisfying. In my present job, the code I wrote twenty
years ago is still in use. For better or worse. It's embarrassing when a
support person asks you about a configuration option you added in 2002
and you draw a blank...

That's an anomaly for me. The code I wrote in the 70's and 80's is
definitely gone since the companies I wrote it for are gone.