Advice on my new job?

[dglienna]

I didn't learn about linked lists until I took some C++ courses. They just weren't taught 20 years ago. I have since implemented them in VB, as they are helpful. I suppose in twenty years, programmers will have a hard time figuring out what we are doing. Things change in computers.

I wouldn't try too hard to start coding their way. Once you get something done that works, maybe they'll look at it and like it. You have to take that chance. If it works out, then great. If it doesn't, you can be glad that you don't own that company.

[szlamany]

I didn't learn about linked lists until I took some C++ courses. They just weren't taught 20 years ago. I have since implemented them in VB, as they are helpful. I suppose in twenty years, programmers will have a hard time figuring out what we are doing. Things change in computers.

I wouldn't try too hard to start coding their way. Once you get something done that works, maybe they'll look at it and like it. You have to take that chance. If it works out, then great. If it doesn't, you can be glad that you don't own that company.

You had poor instructors then. Lists (ordered, linked, double linked and so on) are all basic. Back in 1980 we used the Knuth's series of books on algorithms - this stuff is from 1950 - nothing has changed at all - nothing ever will. The SQL I'm finally using in production right now is from SYBASE - from decades ago.

We had to develop our own RDBMS system on the mainframe - our own "data field equation" processors. Imagine building your own INDEX files and every time a data record is written to a table - imagine having to handle bucket splits when the new keys don't fit. Imagine doing that in 1985.

The only difference I see now is that when I started there was no college majors for Computer Science - now that there is, we end up with people I wish I never hired.

I've seen people on this forum ask about the fastest sort - and then debate it - like sorting is new.

[adagio2004]

That’s good to know, I have been worried that I’m thinking badly of the established programmer because of a possible terminology barrier, ie using different phrase to describe the same thing. I know I experienced some of that when I started talking about things like “week end procedures”, “credit control reports” etc. I just surmised that things like linked lists were universally called that. I do know that I had to explain the concept and he did not seem to know it previously. But, I will think about that for a while now that I know that that isn’t actually the case. Thanks.

Again, it’s my relative isolation in terms of contact with other professional programmers that puts me at a disadvantage here. If I had walked into this job and been confronted with dll’s that we had to use and told things like “putting SQL in form modules is frowned upon” then I would have no problems. It’s my lack of a “yardstick” that has worried me for these past nine days. I know what worked for me in the past but have no experience of the situation in the industry in general.

It’s good to get this feedback since I was worried that maybe I was missing something and would put my foot firmly in my mouth when I talked to the boss. At least now, I know that I’m not thinking stupid thoughts and that what I’m thinking is not too far of the mark.

I’m a bit wary of this situation and definitely do not want to get the established programmer fired out of hand, I like the guy. So, when I talk to my boss I’ll try to be diplomatic and rather than point out flaws I’ll try to point out possible improvements. I think it would be a bad idea to go in and say that they’re doing everything wrong. As such I reckon it will take a while, as Robdogg said.

Oh, and btw, that first form I was working on was about 10 textfields and 2 grids doing double duty as listboxes with an “add all, remove all” thing. It originally had about 2000 lines of code behind it. So far its down to around 500 lines of code and I’ve got a couple of classes to handle data access that I know I can reuse in other places. With a couple of new classes I’ve developed over Christmas I’m sure I can get that down to around 200-300 lines of code and since the new classes are general purpose and involve building dynamic SQL I reckon I can solve (at least partially) some of the locking problems. Eg now I’m only filing out what the user has edited rather than the whole record. I still prefer making sure two users don’t edit the same data but I can fit in with the way this company works.

Oh, and the ADODC control count is down from 23 to zero


Rgds

Adagio2004

[adagio2004]

Hehe szlamany,

I know where you’re coming from. But the thing here is that Dglienna hadn’t heard of the concept of linked lists until relatively recently, thus it is possible that the established programmer in my place had genuinely not heard of them in X years of being a programmer. Whereas I was thinking, “hmm, the guy don’t know about linked lists, exactly how long has he been programming?”

I’ve been there programming on the metal, as it were. I remember writing code that relied on in depth knowledge of how a TV picture is rasterised and the timing of the electron gun to tease 16 colours per character cell out of a machine that could only display 2 colours per character cell normally. I’ve not gone so far in the business field but have used C-Isam and written what I called a “screen driver” for unix/dos which was not a kick in the ass from what Access and VB give us nowadays.

They call programming, software engineering. And as such I treat myself as an engineer. I want to produce good code. Good in the respect that it does what is expected of it. Good in the respect that it works solidly. Good in that it is based on sound principles. Good in that it is relatively easy to maintain. And good in the respect that it doesn’t make anyone’s life harder, be they developer or user.

I can understand what Dglienna says. If you read some VB books on the market they don’t mention linked lists. For most tasks they are largely irrelevant. The same thing happens with sorts, why bother coding a quicksort from scratch when you can stick your data in a disconnected recordset and have it sort it for you.

Yes, I believe it’s good to have the knowledge of what’s going on behind the curtain. But it isn’t always necessary.

I’m just looking for advice here, and don’t want to turn this into an argument over what should be known and what doesn’t need to be know mate.

Rgds

Adagio2004

[dglienna]

But I did learn about ISAM files, and I wonder how many here understand them? Back in the days of tape drives, being able to jump between records was a hardware problem, anyways. In high school, they still had a teletype machine doing 30cps. We had terminals dialed into an HP system. The computer science teacher knew relatively little about computers, so only a few of us really picked up on the jargon.

Those were the days. I would have killed for a computer when I was a teen. Now, my sisters kids have had them all of their lives. My 4 year old niece was better at using the mouse than my dad was. She would move the mouse 5 seconds BEFORE the sceen saver would kick in. I don't know how she did it, but she did.