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My dad's resume and skills from 1980

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Re: My dad's resume and skills from 1980

#461

Post by lmaollamalmao »

spaetzleesser wrote: post #304
nervousvarun wrote: post #223

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We probably are close to the same age. My dad was an engineer who also learned to program FORTRAN in the 70's. When I asked him a similar question his reply was (quotes are paraphrased): "It was way too tedious to do. You'd spend hours getting the cards just right. We used to put them in a shoebox and mark them with a pen in case we dropped them on the way to the lab. Then you'd wait until the next day to get your re…

I enjoyed programming in the 90s and early 2000s but I feel it’s turning again into tedious grunt work with scrum, agile, yaml configuration files and needlessly complex systems.

No post body was provided.

Re: My dad's resume and skills from 1980

#462

Post by aasasd »

daveslash wrote: post #425
aasasd wrote: post #105

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My bet is on India or thereabouts.

You are correct.

I didn't even think about this at first, but—perhaps the parents' occupation is there because of the caste system? I heard that it's still around not just in India, but also in diasporas like the Silicon Valley.

Re: My dad's resume and skills from 1980

#463

Post by unnouinceput »

a4isms wrote: post #408

My mother was a systems analyst in the 1960s. She got a contract as part of a team installing a brand-new IBM/360 at the University of Ibadan in Nigeria, her job was to write administration software. She told me it was a top-of-the-line model with 64K of RAM. At some point, it had a malfunction and they had to replace one of its memory "boards," which were lattices with ferromagnetic cores suspended on filaments. She…

>...I think the moment that I held core memory in my hands was the closest I've really gotten to "the metal" in my lifeWhy is that? You don't build your own computers anymore? Or write a small for fun application on ESP32 that you slap on a board made by yourself? That's the fun, to have a helicopter toy flying your own board + software.

Re: My dad's resume and skills from 1980

#464

Post by tomcam »

drewg123 wrote: post #384
lambdasquirrel wrote: post #253

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> "I didn't thought this thing about computers would go too far." I almost didn't major in Computer Science because in the late 90s, there were so many negative articles in the New York Times, vis-a-vis software. People don't remember it now, but the media and the culture were utterly hostile towards us, and loved to say our jobs were going to India, that everything there was to know about Computer Science could be s…

I was using objdump and cordumps to debug a kernel crash just last week. Not tedious at all. More like working a difficult puzzle. And very rewarding if you figure it out and fix the crash.

Yeah, depending on deadlines that sounds fun to me

Re: My dad's resume and skills from 1980

#465

Post by Firmwarrior »

jimmaswell wrote: post #368
Firmwarrior wrote: post #249

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ah, I had the same experience as you when I graduated People will offer all sorts of wacky feedback about resumes when prompted, but the real issue is that recruiters just don't look at or care about resumes that much. For my last few jobs I just sent an unformatted text file as my resume, one that would make dist1ll's eyes bleed. The most recent recruiter was actually angry at me for how "unprofessional" he thought…

> You have to network your way into a job. Not necessarily, but it does make it easier if you have that opportunity. Places like Tata are good for someone with no connections to get a footing.

That's a good point, but I think people have a lot more connections than they realize

Chances are good you're acquainted with 50+ people, and if each of them is acquainted with 20 unique people, that's 1000 people you can contact through a few weeks of hanging out and chatting

Professors often know relevant industry people in town, too

Worst case, you can hop on here or blind and ask for referrals. Some random dude cold-mailed me before and asked for a referral to my company. I chatted with him a little to make sure he wasn't completely insane, then passed his resume on to a relevant hiring manager. I forgot all about it until I noticed that a $3000 referral bonus showed up in my paycheck a few months later

Re: My dad's resume and skills from 1980

#466

Post by maerF0x0 »

larrywright wrote: post #314
spywaregorilla wrote: post #5

Why does he call out that he is 5'4" I wonder? The "Health: Excellent" seems amusing in today's context too.

Going back a little farther it was not uncommon to list your religion and what church you were a member of. Going back a little farther than that, if you were a candidate for an executive position at a company, they might interview your spouse as well.

afaik the line of thinking were : religious people were more honest, happily married more stable (ie, your relationship wasn't a source of stress/instability), and being a parent made you seem more responsible.

Nowadays cynicism has inverted those thoughts:

Religious -- hypocrites. Married -- soon will be divorced, may get pregnant. Parent -- how irresponsible for the environment.

Re: My dad's resume and skills from 1980

#467

Post by sswaner »

UncleSlacky wrote: post #245
sswaner wrote: post #112

That resume reinforces the argument that the GI Bill is the best legislation every passed in the US.

Shame it wasn't available to everyone who qualified: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/G.I._Bill#Racial_discriminatio...

True. Imagine where we would be if that hadn’t happen. The lost opportunity is immense.

Re: My dad's resume and skills from 1980

#468

Post by nske »

dleslie wrote: post #336
still_grokking wrote: post #247

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I was fascinated by this story as teenager. But looking back on it, I would say out of my current perspective this Mel guy was not a genius, but one of the worst programmers you could probably hire: He written unmaintainable and even unchangeable "write-once" code that was so complex that nobody else could handle it either. He refused to do what he was payed for and just went away as he lost interest. One of this kin…

> Your software is going to need to change over time! Not so for anything shipped on ROM.

The software running on a specific ROM might not be able to change (assuming we're talking for devices using mask ROM and not EEPROM) but it doesn't mean the code itself is supposed to be disposable. Different devices or revisions of the same device can benefit from code changes. Even on the same device unit, they might want to replace the ROM chip to include some fix if it's important enough and makes financial sense. The software itself transcends the constraints of any particular delivery medium.

Re: My dad's resume and skills from 1980

#469

Post by reader_x »

I love the resume itself: the non-fussy font, wording, and layout is refreshingly straightforward. It makes me want to take your dad to lunch and hear all his stories. My grandfather piloted a B-29 in 1945, and his brother was an early computer scientist; maybe their paths overlapped. Warm regards to your dad!

Re: My dad's resume and skills from 1980

#470

Post by thewebcount »

mikestew wrote: post #68
deeblering4 wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Up until the mid-late 2000s tech interviews consisted of a few conversations, followed by checking references. CS trivia interviews were largely introduced by Google, with other companies cargo culting that into their interview practices.

Microsoft was known for “why are manhole covers round” and CS trivia before Google was even a company.

Yeah, I did one of those interviews with them circa `93 and got that exact question!
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