Will the real Pete please stand up!

[BenSollis]

Pete, how do you ever get time to develop code?

You are constantly and consistently present here and in other places answering questions etc etc!

I think there is another Pete somewhere doing the code! ;)

regards,

Ben

[Pete Dowson]

Pete, how do you ever get time to develop code?

Well, partly by not sleeping much, partly by not flying at all except to test things (I really must change that!), but mostly by the fact that this is now a full-time (+overtime) jobactually it has been for several years, but I didn't use to get paid for it.

There is only one of me, honest, and I have a very understanding wife! Also I code pretty fast. I never even used to make errors either, which helps enormously, but my brain must be getting pickled with all this beer and wine as I make more and more silly mistakes each year these days.

Regards,

Pete

[Jamie Fox]

I never even used to make errors either

Really? I find myself making errors every tenth line or so, and spend about 3/4 of my programming time correcting errors! I'm really too young to claim any kind of old-age excuse, so your years of experience must count for something. What's the secret? I don't understand how you can say this immediately after saying "I code quite fast."

I'm still not convinced. Pete Dowson is actually a pseudonym for a team of 3 programmers, at least 5 support staff, and a tea lady. :)

[Pete Dowson]

What's the secret? I don't understand how you can say this immediately after saying "I code quite fast."

I don't know exactly why. It's just my peculiar capability. Sometimes I wish I could play a musical instrument instead :)

I discovered it at the first programming aptitude test I took when looking for a job back in 1963. We had an hour for this paper and I finished it in about 20 minutes and couldn't understand why no one else had. I got 100% (I was informed afterwards).

I've always made typo-type mistakes -- this comes from trying to type as fast as I think. I used to stutter for the same reason. Luckily, most typing errors in programs get caught by the compiler --- but not all. Quite a few of the silly mistakes I've made this year have been typos.

Otherwise nearly all my mistakes are when modifying existing code to do something extra or different when I've not been near the code for a while. If I misunderstand what I was doing originally then I'm almost bound to mess it up, then spend a while working out why.

I think the difference these last few years is just that -- memory. I used to be able to look at a piece of code I'd written years before and remember what it was all about despite my appalling coding style and imbecilic commenting, or more usually the lack of it. Now I think I remember but, evidently quite often, don't.

I put it down to erosion of the "little grey cells" by the preponderence of home-made beer (keeps me awake and helps me work all night! I don't use coffee), and the delicious wines we like to have with our meals.

Regards,

Pete

[mark139]

I find that if I'm working on something that has a very long write, compile test cycle then I'm very careful not to introduce errors. Nothing more frustraiting than have to wait ages just to fix one line of code.

Beer just makes me fall asleep these days :)

[Pete Dowson]

I find that if I'm working on something that has a very long write, compile test cycle then I'm very careful not to introduce errors. Nothing more frustraiting than have to wait ages just to fix one line of code.

Yes, that was mostly the circumstances in the old mainframe days. Certainly it was all good training for producing code as free of silly errors as possible.

When I was working in the development labs, though, we used to be able to get all-night hands-on sessions.

I was involved in developing engineering test programs and operating systems for machines in development, or in the field but under engineering investigation for one reason or another. In other words, the software couldn't trust any of the hardware to work and had to self-check al the way. If you couldn't trust the software either, well :)

Regards,

Pete

[BenSollis]

Way back when I did my IT training in the Army, we had a great saying...

"I don't follow standards... I set them!"

This was always said with a smirk on the face and a large bundle of COBOL compilation errors from an LA150 line printer in your hand :)

Pete Wrote:

in the old mainframe days

Ah, they were the days!

Ben