Re(2): Re(2): [SunRescue] Offerings

Dave McGuire mcguire at neurotica.com
Wed Aug 18 17:51:43 CDT 1999


  Ahh, don't sweat it.  VMS is alive and well, and FORTRAN won't "obsolete"
until other languages can Do The Math Thing as well as it can.  Just because
it's been around for a while doesn't mean it's "old", and even if it IS "old",
that certainly doesn't mean it doesn't get the job done.  It may even be the
Right Tool For The Job, a philosophy that's been nearly stamped out of
existence in our industry.

  Too many people, I believe spawned by marketing in the PC industry, equate
age with lack of functionality.  This is, of course, a crock.  By way of
example, my former employer (a very large ISP called DIGEX) still has a few
hundred Sun3 systems running in production...and is making a fortune with them.
Are they old?  Sure.  Do they still work?  Definitely!  For something that
doesn't need the speed of a 600MHz Alpha, they do Just Fine.

           -Dave McGuire

On Mon, 16 Aug 1999, Christopher Drelich wrote:
>I use 6250 9tracks everyday.  Of course I also use VMS and Fortran, so
>take that for what you will.
>Chris
>
>On Mon, 16 Aug 1999, Shawn Boyette wrote:
>
>> Tim Hauber writes:
>> 
>>  > You know, in this day and age the majority of hackers have probably never
>>  > seen tapes spin except in movies.
>> 
>> Get a job in business programming. I got a job at AFLAC and thought
>> someone was playing a joke on me when they first handed me a 6250-type 
>> 9-track tape.
>> 
>> Unfortunately not. Reel tapes are alive and well in the dark recesses
>> of the world that is Business Programming. There were 2 tape drives at 
>> AFLAC which had production dates od 12-27-73 stamped on them. My
>> production date, by way of comparison, is 06-25-75.
>> 
>> -- 
>> Shawn Boyette, Programmer -- mdxi at collapsar.cx
>> ----------------------------------------------------------------
>>  | <- You must be smarter than this stick to ride the Internet
>> 
>> _______________________________________________
>> Rescue maillist  -  Rescue at sunhelp.org
>> http://www.sunhelp.org/mailman/listinfo/rescue
>> 
>
>
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