Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

My dad's resume and skills from 1980

github.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

501–510 of 611 posts

Re: My dad's resume and skills from 1980

#501

Post by beezle »

unnouinceput wrote: post #463
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 life Why 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.

I have some core memory - one batch in a small container, the other is wired and mounted inside a picture frame and hangs on the wall. Neat stuff

Re: My dad's resume and skills from 1980

#502

Post by pensievelogsfir »

walnutclosefarm wrote: post #53

When I first entered the working world as a programmer and administrator of an "academic computing center", in the early 70s, you met men like Ray - ex-military, GI-bill educated, learned computers from the electricity on up in their mid-career, rather frequently, either as customer engineers for one of the big mainframe manufacturers (there were 7 or 8, depending on when and how you counted), or from the minicompute…

11/10! Gracias for sharing !

Re: My dad's resume and skills from 1980

#503

Post by opportune »

utexaspunk wrote: post #308
sbf501 wrote: post #246

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Probably not. Lots of "critical" software is re-written frequently. I met the head of IT at Target during a presentation he gave on how they switched from PHP to NodeJS (~2012). I took a year to migrate the entire ERP solution to NodeJS (plus frontend). Just like that, PHP was gone. If the entire ERP can be re-written that quickly, then if a better language comes along, it will displace the Node infra. What didn't ch…

SQL is pretty darn perfect for its purpose. As long as databases exist, SQL will exist. It is also super easy and intuitive to learn- I taught myself and it has been my bread and butter for the ~17 years since .

SQL will always exist as a lingua Franca for data because its declarative nature lets anybody immediately start using a new database/data tool just knowing basic SQL. At the same time, it’s far from perfect for all use cases - it can be much easier to write certain queries imperatively than declaratively.

I can envision a future in which databases are primarily used imperatively while still supporting SQL for those who want to use it.

Re: My dad's resume and skills from 1980

#504

Post by system2 »

jcadam wrote: post #41
PragmaticPulp wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> No need for 5-star skills ratings, dual-colored backgrounds, unreadable fonts, and whatnot... I read a lot of resumes. Honestly, the number of quirky over-designed resumes I see is probably 1 in 50. The vast majority of people do submit clearly organized resumes based on a template they found. The reason those quirky over-designed resumes get shared on HN or other social media is because they’re different, not beca…

I eventually gave up on Word templates and now keep my resume in LaTeX. Neat and organized - not unlike this example only with more detail and nicer fonts :) Occasionally a recruiter will ask/demand I give it to them in MS Word - I've learned it's always a bad idea to give recruiter a resume in an easily editable format.

LaTeX seems very difficult. Why are you using it for such a basic job you could do with MS Word?

Re: My dad's resume and skills from 1980

#505

Post by jaza »

zackmorris wrote: post #142

If the minimalist resume is appealing, can we also bring back walk-on hiring? In warehouse and construction work, if someone shows up at 7:30 AM on a Monday morning, odds are quite good that the foreman will have something for them to do. Maybe not that day, but maybe tomorrow, or maybe someone on the list above them won't show up that week and they'll get called. I made rent doing that in my early 20s and they even…

The closest equivalent to that today, in most white-collar roles at least, is contracting. Usually not a physical walk-on hire anymore, but it is often quite a quick process (sometimes as little as a few hours), from "I need a worker", to "I can do it", to "get cracking sonny". And it's then, days / weeks / months (usually not years) later, a similarly quick process, from "we don't need you anymore" / "I'm outta here", to "don't let the door hit you".

But the contractor usually needs to be "employed by" some agency company, that guarantees his/her suitability, and that handles the (not insignificant) paperwork / legalities, and that takes a handsome cut.

Re: My dad's resume and skills from 1980

#506

Post by dboreham »

LtWorf wrote: post #259
PaulDavisThe1st wrote: post #222

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Interesting. Almost nothing I've done as a programmer since 1985 seems automated today. What do you mean by "fully automated" ?

No? You had valgrind to find memory bugs in 1985?

Debug heap libraries existed in 1895.

Re: My dad's resume and skills from 1980

#507

Post by StevePerkins »

morelisp wrote: post #133
chrisseaton wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Many even call out their parents' occupation. Are those German resumes? Very odd. Can't be used for anything except discrimination.

I've looked at a ton of German resumes and never seen this. Only once on someone from (and at the time of writing, in) South Asia. (German resumes frequently do have familial status though, and of course always with the fucking photographs...)

Photographs are back. Either your resume contains a link to your LinkedIn profile, or else your LinkedIn IS your resume to begin with.

Re: My dad's resume and skills from 1980

#508

Post by beezle »

bradhe wrote: post #46

Imagine the changes they saw between 1956 and 1980...that'd be so amazing.

My father started at Univac just after the Korean War. He never did a lot of coding, instead he was a "systems man". He went from the room size mainframe systems with huge dedicated tape and disk machines to time sharing to buying me an Apple II around 1980.

Unfortunately, systems and procedures is no longer sexy and is mostly an after thought today. But back in the hey day of the 1960/70s that was where the money was.

Re: My dad's resume and skills from 1980

#509

Post by dboreham »

sizzzzlerz wrote: post #257

When I graduated college with a EE degree in 1977, my resume was damned sparse on experience, mainly because I didn't have any. All I could throw out were the EE and engineering classes I'd taken in school. Somehow, I got hired by a company in S.V.. By the time I retired after 43 years, I had so much experience, it wouldn't fit on 3 pages. Fortunately, I didn't need a resume any longer.

"What's a resume?", said in the voice of Maggie Smith ;)

(https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zhfpBW-nUWk)

Re: My dad's resume and skills from 1980

#510

Post by robocat »

jpmattia wrote: post #111
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.

My first real job was 1986: Having a "stable" personal life was something employers would "need" to know. And god help you if there was a gap on your resume; it was advertising your deviancy. Such attitudes all changed drastically just around that time, not in small part because the demand for EE and CS people started outstripping the supply.

From my memory of Engineering School in the “colonies” in 1990, CS were very geek, EE were normal geek, mechanical engineers were normal engineers, and civil engineers were social deviants (to use stereotypes). There was a certain geek pride abnormality that was almost expected of the better EE engineers . . . or perhaps I thought that because I identified as a geek? I don’t recall noticing any strong demand for EE engineers. I think I noticed the uptick in demand for computer skills in the mid-90s, although I admit I surely was unaware of the world around me.
Post reply on HN