Subj : Re: Cobol/gnucobol
To : Dumas Walker
From : poindexter FORTRAN
Date : Fri May 30 2025 07:51 am
-=> Dumas Walker wrote to JCURTIS <=-
DW> LOL, now you have me thinking about it. When I first hired on, my
DW> title was Programmer/Analyst. As I moved up, it was Systems Engineer.
DW> It seems like "developer" entered the lingo when we started adding
DW> "distributed systems developers," which was not an official title --
DW> those were the folks that did programming for (usually) Microsoft
DW> Windows server-based systems.
My title right now is "IT Manager", which is a catch-all I've had
at various points in my career.
I worked in local government which had titles that made no sense, until
you realize that they were a union shop and the titles were negotiated
when they had a server room full of AS/400s. Applications programmer,
Systems analysts, Systems Analyst.
What that devolved into was a caste system where applications
programmers fixed your Outlook problem but wouldn't move your monitor
or keyboard. Systems analysts would come and move hardware, swap out
monitors, replace mice and so forth. It made no sense whatsoever, meant
the hardware guys were paid less, and complicated issues with
customers.
DW> It may have been, as more than one would later admit to me, because
DW> they didn't really know how to do the "bare bones" programming per-se.
DW> They knew how to work the GUI framework tools to have as much of the
DW> code as possible generated for them, and how to tweak it to get it at
DW> least close to what was asked for.
DW> Eventually, management, the business analysts, and project leaders got
DW> to where they called us all "developers" and the name sort of stuck.
DW> ;)
DW> * SLMR 2.1a * I'll have one brain on drugs with bacon, toast and
DW> juice. ---
DW> Synchronet CAPCITY2 * capcity2.synchro.net *
DW> Telnet/SSH:2022/Rlogin/HTTP
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