Recent content by mutant

I guess the issue I am trying to raise here is in parallel with the title of this forum. The variation is: "How should the computer profession define it's standards for being a computer professional?" In various engineering professions, you must pass a governing body's administered...

Migrating to Data Architect? I never held that title. I am more at the level of Data Mystic. Beyond a BS and MS in Computer Science with a heavy emphasis in Mathematics, I started as project lead on a world-wide distributed database project that was failing by the previous incumbant's...

I have worked in a wide variety of environments. Simple stand-alone machines, LANs, WANs, minicomputers, world-wide distributed database (early 1980s; before the internet), huge multi-node mainframe environments with large arrays of front-end and back-end minicomputers, plus some supercomputer...

Want to be a data architect, then start with the following concepts: 1) set theory/discrete mathematics 2) first-order logic 3) predicate calculus Some good books: 1) Weiderhold's Database Design 2) Ullman's Principles of Database and Knowledge-base Systems (2 volumes) 3) Ince's An...

I think I addressed this in another thread, but here goes my thoughts again. 1) You will always need extremely technical programmers writing systems software to develop the OS, compilers, etc. 2) The direction of all organizations should be to consolidate their systems around a core DBMS. The...

Ted, Here is another kind of weird but interesting forum. The bad part is that it is defunct as of March 31. They are trying to transfer everything to another site, but I'm not sure it will happen. It originated as an economics forum on longwaves, but actually interwines some of the best and...

Ted, I didn't take any offense. I find these forums to be very useful. These forums are a great way to bounce ideas around to make sure they make some form of sense. A lot of what I have to say is off the top of my head. I'm actually dealing with chronic fatigue syndrome and find it very...

I don't know if the correct term is "admire them", it would be more like "I confirm their dominance which correspondingly leaves us submissive". Even in the early days of microcomputers, I preferred their products over other products like Borland's. I have been around long...

Here is one of my experiences with Microslop. I was using an early C compiler and found an error in the floating point part of their product. I reported the error. They confirmed it and said if I want the fix it would cost me $14. They should of paid me for debugging their compiler.

Being successful or being productive is distinctly different than being a qualified professional. If my memory serves me correctly, Bill Gates never completed college. You can call him successful and productive, but the quality of the Microsoft products lend credence to the concept of quality...

There is a big difference between these certification programs and being licensed like a mechanical engineer, civil engineer, doctor, or lawyer. Try passing the bar exam - even after you have graduated from a law school.

One of the serious problems with the computer field is that it has never been treated the same as engineers, lawyers, doctors, or even like secretaries. Secretaries have in the past had to pass at least a typing test and meet specific criteria to perform the job. Being a skilled typist requires...

Check out Gartner's take on SCO and Linux. www4.gartner.com/DisplayDocument?id=395607&ref=g_forward&call=email

Packard Bell - yuck. These NEC machines are sold in Europe, but no longer sold in the US. Gee, I think Europe is still buying DataPoint machines. Wake up people - junk is still junk. Do you buy used underwear? If you are looking for a good deal, I have a used tooth brush for sale.

This was a curiously interesting thread. Now for my 10 cents. WinNT is not a descendent of OS/2; it is a descendent of VMS. The non-NT based Windows OSs (since V1.0) continue to suffer from their genes being passed down from DOS (which was cloned/mutated from CP/M). Each generation of...