Path: ...!eternal-september.org!feeder2.eternal-september.org!news.eternal-september.org!.POSTED!not-for-mail
From: Lynn McGuire <lynnmcguire5@gmail.com>
Newsgroups: rec.arts.sf.written
Subject: Re: Whoops! The Atlantic Makes Trump Look EPIC In Cover Intended as a
 Smear
Date: Wed, 30 Oct 2024 18:44:55 -0500
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On 10/30/2024 5:29 PM, Bobbie Sellers wrote:
> On 10/30/24 14:12, Lynn McGuire wrote:
>> On 10/30/2024 3:54 PM, Scott Lurndal wrote:
>>> Lynn McGuire <lynnmcguire5@gmail.com> writes:
>>>> On 10/30/2024 4:39 AM, D wrote:
>>>
>>>>>
>>>>> This raises questions about the future job of programmers. Do you
>>>>> believe that the field will be split into simple code-monkeys where
>>>>> salaries with the help of AI, will decrease more and more over 
>>>>> time, and
>>>>> the "elite" who actually are the ones who develop new algorithms, 
>>>>> tools
>>>>> and AI that serve to reduce the salaries of the code-monkeys?
>>>>
>>>> I have no idea and I am in the business of writing and selling 
>>>> software.
>>>>   Programming is an odd profession, very few programmers actually 
>>>> have a
>>>> programming degree.  My degree is in Mechanical Engineering, one of my
>>>> programmers has a PhD in Chemical Engineering, and my other programmer
>>>> has a double degree in Chemistry and Physics.
>>>
>>> Pretty much every programmer I've worked with over the last forty 
>>> five years
>>> has had a degree in computer science or computer engineering.  There
>>> have been some without degrees that learned on the job (e.g. started
>>> in product support and moved to programming, but those are the 
>>> exception,
>>> not the rule).
>>>
>>>
>>>>
>>>> Many of the elite programmers never graduated from college.  Bill 
>>>> Gates,
>>>> Mark Zuckerberg, etc.
>>>
>>> Calling either of them 'elite' programmers is inaccurate.  Good 
>>> businessmen,
>>> perhaps.  Perhaps even good idea men.
>>>
>>>
>>> Windows is, however, a steaming pile.  Popular by default, not by 
>>> design.
>>
>> And you just outed yourself as an elitist with that last comment.
>>
>> Lynn
>>
>      And what definition of elitist do you use, Lynn McGuire?
> 
> Let me say that I used an Amiga computer from Commodore Business
> machines. I have a long standing hostility toward Mircosoft
> producte. I know that Windows is better than every before but
> the interface is so obstuctive that I will not even run it in
> a VirtualBox under Linux. When Commodore Business Machines
> went out of business I hung around for a while but eventually
> the hardware became too difficult to get repaired.
> I moved to Linux in 2006 and I have used Window XP and helped
> people understand Windows 3.1 and wiped out Windows 10 from
> my computers repeatedly as I got other computers to replace
> older and less well cared for machines.
>      Now I do that on Social Security and I could not afford
> licenses for the software that Windows or even MacIntosh uses.
> I would prefer to be using an updated AmigaOS but the current
> hardware is very expensive which is the rule with smaller companies
> but I could run an emulator but those are directed toward gamers
> rather than writers. I am old and sick unable to do all my own
> shopping without a friends assitance with tranportation.
>      So am I a member of an elite?  I have no formal eduation
> aside from HS and a few course in the USN plus before I retired
> classes to keep my nursing license. oh I am white so maybe I
> am an elite.  But I am devotely anti-racist abd a survivor
> of minor challenges to my health.
>      But strangely enough my Opinion of Windoss is very
> negative.
> 
> bliss- Dell Precision 7730- PCLOS 2024.10-Linux 6.6.58-Plasma 5.27.11

You are an end user, do and say whatever you want.  Scott is / was a 
professional programmer, to make a statement like that is incredibly 
unprofessional in my opinion.

Scott probably knows but maybe does not, is that Bill Gates wrote the 
first Basic compiler/interpreter for Microsoft in 2,000 bytes of 8080 
assembly language.  It actually ran on the Altair 8800 with 4,000 bytes 
of ram.  I would call Gates an elite programmer.

Mark Zuckerberg was the only programmer for Facebook for several years. 
He got Facebook up and going by himself before hiring any employees.  I 
would call Zuckerberg an elite programmer.

I could name dozens of other elite programmers.  Thompson, Ritchie, 
Kernighan, Carmack, etc.  So could Scott.

Lynn