Picks and Pans

I just have to say it. Is Java the COBOL of the 90's? I used to
hear people say they would only program in Visual C++ and nothing
else. They wanted to windows programming and nothing else. They
wanted to be Microsoft junkies. I had this vision of thousands of
out of work Visual C++ programmers standing on a street corner
hawking windows apps for pennies.

Now I am seeing the same thing with Java. Java this, Java that.
So many coffee metaphors. Too many coffee metaphors. Not enough
computer science or just plain engineering.

I fear that people will be only able to make cute little animations
jump across the screen and no one will be left who can actually
tell me how the machine actually works.

Posted by Brad at 12:00 AM | Permalink | TrackBacks (0)

I recently had an "episode" trying to get an ISDN basic rate
line to work (n.b. 'basic rate' is the terminology for the type
of ISDN line you would get in your house). The paperwork from
the phone company said the line was configured as "5ESS Nation ISDN".
This was odd, because two of the (many) choices when configuring an
ISDN router for a basic rate (a.k.a "BRI") line are "5ESS Custom"
and "Nation ISDN 1" (or "NI-1"). So, which to pick? 5ESS? NI-1?
We guessed 5ESS. The router would answer the phone but nothing worked.
We got garbage packets from the remote side.
HUmm... After a week of scratching our heads (and trying 1000 other
things) we had the bright idea to try "NI-1". Viola. It worked.

Now, it seems to be that the switch knew how it was configured. And
the router knew how it was configured. And since the router could
answer the phone the two where at least having a basic ISDN conversation.
So, why couldn't the router tell that the switch was configured for
NI-1?

It would have been really helpful if somehow we could have been
informed that we had the configuration wrong.

Posted by Brad at 12:00 AM | Permalink | TrackBacks (0)