Re: Graduating engineer - HP all the way through! Message #16 Posted by Maximilian Hohmann on 17 Dec 2006, 3:57 p.m., in response to message #11 by Paul
Hello!
Quote: Most of the legacy programmers will be retiring shortly which will create major problems in the future.
I have been reading variations of this statement for many, many years now but I still have my doubts about its validity.
First of all, we "legacy programmers" (I am no programmer, but an aerospace engineer who also writes computer code in "old fashioned" languages like FORTRAN - pure "programmers" have retired long ago and this profession is no longer taught, at least in my part of the world ...) have a long way to go till we reach the age of retirement.
And secondly, most "old fashioned" computer languages can be learnt within a few days/weeks. So if there really comes a need for more COBOL/BASIC/FORTRAN programmers, people with a background in engineering or computer science can be trained within very short time! If the figure on the cheque is right, I would be happy to teach people FORTRAN and COBOL any time anywhere - just give me a ring :-)
And regarding the original question: As an aerospace engineer, I have no use at all for a pocket calculator in my job. Summing up working hours is the best use I can find, but even this is stupid, because in the end I have to type them into some network-spreadsheet on the computer. I take a different calculator with me every day, but apart from impressing (some) colleagues, I put it back in my backpack in the evening without having touched it all day most days. The last time I really used a calculator at work was during my Ph.d., but that was a few years back, and when I was halfway through the thing, our boss bought us a copy of "Mathematica" and the calculator (a Ti-59 then) went back into the drawer...
Greetings, Max
|