I thought I was an old-timer by decades. Guess not -- my first program was written on paper tape for an Alwac 3-E (tubes, you know) at a math camp in 1967. I've been a professional programmer since 1969, but my interests and economic realities steered me through IBM and Microsoft products.
My observation still stands, though. The world of Java and its offshoots is pretty much the wild west right now. When this kind of thing happened to hardware in the 70's, people banded together to define standards that were much easier to describe and enforce. Getting a bunch of programmers to agree on anything is like herding cats. -----Original Message----- From: Chris Olsen <col...@mchsi.com> Sent: Saturday, September 28, 2019 12:56 PM To: Jack Woehr <softwo...@gmail.com> Cc: NetBeans Mailing List <users@netbeans.apache.org> Subject: Re: A Bad Thing has happened to the promise of platform independence Jack and All -- I fear that my jpackage question of a few days ago unintentionally ignited something of a contentious discussion, for which I must apologize! I beat Jack by 5 years having been in this game (as a hobby mostly) for about 45 years. I agree with Jack's sentiments below -- programming IS a pain in the butt -- but also brings the excitement of the hunt and pride of problem solved. (Easy for me to say -- I work in an academic environment without the real-world time pressure most of you probably work under.) As I try to move from 8 to 11 I, too, wish it were easier -- but until it is I (mostly) enjoy the hunt and (totally) appreciate the assistance and wisdom of the people on this list. -- Chris ----- Original Message ----- From: Jack Woehr <softwo...@gmail.com> To: Neil C Smith <neilcsm...@apache.org> Cc: Walter Oney <walter.o...@oneylaw.com>, NetBeans Mailing List <users@netbeans.apache.org> Sent: Sat, 28 Sep 2019 12:14:35 -0400 (EDT) Subject: Re: A Bad Thing has happened to the promise of platform independence I apologize if my comment was unclear. I was trying to be light. I think Mosca and Oney pretty much got what I was saying. I've been in this game for about 40 years. Stuff comes and goes. Programming is always a pain in the butt. If it wasn't, everyone would do it and it would be a minimum wage job. You learn something and then it's gone and you learn something else. You wrestle with other people's code. The late Stan Kelly-Bootle was joking about this decades ago in his *Devil's DP Dictionary*. I feel everyone's pain because it's my pain, too. Still wrestling with it. Such is the life of the programmer! --------------------------------------------------------------------- To unsubscribe, e-mail: users-unsubscr...@netbeans.apache.org For additional commands, e-mail: users-h...@netbeans.apache.org For further information about the NetBeans mailing lists, visit: https://cwiki.apache.org/confluence/display/NETBEANS/Mailing+lists --------------------------------------------------------------------- To unsubscribe, e-mail: users-unsubscr...@netbeans.apache.org For additional commands, e-mail: users-h...@netbeans.apache.org For further information about the NetBeans mailing lists, visit: https://cwiki.apache.org/confluence/display/NETBEANS/Mailing+lists
