New Job: A post by Flyingcursor

[Flyingcursor]

I started a new job a few weeks ago. I forgot to mention it.

Sadly, you will not see as much posting from me.

I hope you can contain your disappointment.

Anyway what is interesting about this is I have been hired to help replace a huge document management system that I built 11 years ago for a large pharmaceutical company.

Imagine the nostalgia when I saw AWK and shell scripts written by me in 1995 and 1996.

Thrill to the idea that validation and testing documents still exist that I wrote so long ago; in Word Perfect.
With my name even!

Especially nice were the greetings I received from old colleagues.

Plus I get more cold hard cash!!!!!

[jsluder]

More money is good. Congrats on the new job! Stop by when you can.

[djm]

Who sed?

djm

[fearfaoin]

Imagine the nostalgia when I saw AWK and shell scripts written by me in 1995 and 1996.

Good ol' awk. I once interviewed for a co-op position at Cisco
in the 90's. One of the interviewers wanted someone to help
write sed and awk scripts for something. He said "all these
wippersnappers want to use perl, and I guess you can do that
if you have to." I didn't even know perl at the time, so I didn't
get the job. To this day I've shunned sed and awk just to spite
him.

[missy]

good for you Flydood!

[Flyingcursor]

Who sed?

vi do you tink I brought it up?

Good ol' awk. I once interviewed for a co-op position at Cisco
in the 90's. One of the interviewers wanted someone to help
write sed and awk scripts for something. He said "all these
wippersnappers want to use perl, and I guess you can do that
if you have to." I didn't even know perl at the time, so I didn't
get the job. To this day I've shunned sed and awk just to spite

Here's the tragic tale of how I became an avid AWK user.

The system in question had three main parts residing on HP UNIX boxes. Metadata
in an Oracle database, huge amounts of content and customizations written in C.

Through a twisted turn of events it came about that the system had to be moved to
a Solaris platform. I was given the responsibility of orchestrating the move.

This was my first real gig as a "comp sci" graduate at the ripe age of 35 and I didn't want to blow it.

Because of the link between metadata and content I was forced to utilize the vendor supplied methods of transformation.

Needless to say, the testing environment proved a catastrophe.

However, through much anger and sweat I finally ran a successful test run and we were
set to go.

Now, at this time, one must remember, remote access had not reached today's standards.
Therefore on the weekend of truth I, out of fear of failure, spent the entire weekend in my little cubicle watching the conversion. I slept on the floor. I played Empire on my PC while carefully ensuring no fluxuations occurred in the anticipated scheme.

On Monday morning workers would arrive. They'd log into the system to retrieve their SOPs and begin manufacturing the drugs upon which we rely.

On Sunday evening the entire process was complete. Everything worked perfectly.....
...Except...the customizations written in C would not work.

On Monday morning workers would arrive. They'd log into the system and NOT retrieve their SOPS.

Secretaries would faint.
Workers would cry.
Stockholders would require coronary bypass surgery.
Production would grind to a halt.
I would be canned!!!!

Yes, I had tested the C programs but for some reason they didn't work in the real world!!!
What was I to do?
OMGWTF!!!!!

Quickly, late Sunday night I realized I didn't have time to call the UNIX support dude and have the compiler fixed.

I decided to rewrite them all in AWK.
Fast, simple and quick.

Grabbing a famous O'Reilly book I learned AWK and rewrote everything.
I rewrote the testing scripts.
I rewrote the validaion scripts.
I singlehandedly slapped everything into production and let 'er rip.

It worked.

On Monday the workers came in and gathered their SOPs.
Secretaries enjoyed their coffee.
Stockholders didn't raise an eyebrow.

From that day until now I love AWK.

[dfernandez77]

I eard enry iggins ad a awk.

til it ate is canary.

[fearfaoin]

I decided to rewrite them all in AWK. Fast, simple and quick.
Grabbing a famous O'Reilly book I learned AWK and rewrote everything.

Wow. Well played! Your testicular fortitude is laudible.

[Cynth]

A new job where the people are nice and the pay is better---that would be hard to beat. Congratulations!! Keep up with that bike riding and stay in touch.

[Wanderer]

congrats on the new job!

[The Weekenders]

So, what's it like, living and working in India??

[Nanohedron]

So, what's it like, living and working in India??

Oh, you.

[Flyingcursor]

I decided to rewrite them all in AWK. Fast, simple and quick.
Grabbing a famous O'Reilly book I learned AWK and rewrote everything.

Wow. Well played! Your testicular fortitude is laudible.

It was fear for my job more than testicular fortitude I'm afraid.

So, what's it like, living and working in India??

Good morning sir.
You have asked what it's like living and working in India.
May I ask what operating system you are using?

[Innocent Bystander]

You rewrote C programs in awk?!? I am impressed!

I've done enough migrations from HPUX to Solaris to recognise the kind of problem. (mostly, different flavours of C, and manufacturers who don't see why they should bother to ship a complete C compiler as standard.)

I occasionally see old programs dating back to 1998. That's quite far enough. It's the comments that are embarrassing. Although, heaven knows, it should be the lack of comments that embarrass.

[fearfaoin]

I decided to rewrite them all in AWK. Fast, simple and quick.
Grabbing a famous O'Reilly book I learned AWK and rewrote everything.

Wow. Well played! Your testicular fortitude is laudible.

It was fear for my job more than testicular fortitude I'm afraid.

I meant that you learned something new and applied it, rather than
curling up in a fetal position and whimpering, as I've seen people
do in similar situations.