The deterioration of IT

Ray Palmer · 07-09-2022 05:31PM

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119585624#Comment_119585624

Well there was no way my secondary school in 87 was ever going to teach Latin. It was metal work or wood work and a former industrial school. Yes lots of joy riders, drug dealers and thieves. Basically the school all the students kick out of other schools were sent to. Your school sounds way posher than mine but I was talking about primary school

Would have been the BBC Acorn computer which I think was less than half price of a Commadore 64 but supported with education material

monkeybutter · 07-09-2022 06:04PM

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119585622#Comment_119585622

I was about in the 80s yes, in the real world

I know about accounts, not many would be letting their kids do them, on what did you have a printer too?

not one where parents of factory operators were buying computers in 1981, they were probably renting the TV ffs and not a colour one

I bet you had a colour TV, paid for

Computers not a chance

CalamariFritti · 07-09-2022 06:10PM

Everything atm is minimum turnaround. Someone thinks of a feature they 'need' in the morning, so lets have a release in the evening. They call it 'agile' and everything is done in 'sprints' - state of 'permanent urgency'. Specs are a thing of the past. Hard to see how to maintain quality in the long run here.

Ah whatever, that'll pass too.

Ray Palmer · 07-09-2022 06:23PM

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119585819#Comment_119585819

You know I didn’t say somebody working in a factory bought a computer in 81 but by 86. You could actually go to place with files and get them printed or bring the file to the accountant to file. Well at 13 I was doing book keeping in school and was just filing and filling in a spread sheet. At 16 I was doing technical drawings for buildings that still stand to this day. Not everybody had a childhood where they did nothing but play.

we also had greyhounds we raced but nobody working class does that. I had to get up at 7am to walk them 4 miles everyday before school and then after school the same. Wether didn’t matter. We may have been better off than some in the area but not the wealthiest by a long shot.

i don’t think you know what working class is because even management in the civil service are working class. So you do have private estates beside a council estate and they are all working class.

Flinty997 · 07-09-2022 06:28PM

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119585886#Comment_119585886

How did they bring a file to somewhere in in the early 80s. 5¼-inch floppies?

Flinty997 · 07-09-2022 06:35PM

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119585667#Comment_119585667

Latin was taught by lots of the CBS. It's a religious thing not a posh thing.

Ray Palmer · 07-09-2022 06:56PM

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119585908#Comment_119585908

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119585942#Comment_119585942

There has always been a way to move and store files. I certainly didn’t do it in the early 80s and never said that, you and monkey are mixing up time lines. The CPC did have floppies and I had that in 1987. I was filling in a spreadsheet which was magic then and compared to an adult manually doing it and charging for it.

The freedom to study Latin was not something people would have had in my area. It was also a CBS and former industrial school where control and practical skills rules. About a quarter of my year left once they hit 16.

bucketybuck · 07-09-2022 07:41PM

Its the lad who claims computers were common among the working class in the 80's who is mixing up his timelines.

Flinty997 · 07-09-2022 07:45PM

There's a touch of the 4 yorkshiremen about Rays revisionism.

I don't think I ever saw or used a 5¼-inch outside a college lab. They were gone by the time I started working in IT. In college I vaguely remember they were accidentally wiped very easily. Especially by walkmans and headphones of the day.

I thought those early home computers used audio cassettes. I didn't find it interesting at the time. Seemed very dull stuff.

I think I really only got interested in computers with the start of CAD and 3D stuff.

Flinty997 · 07-09-2022 07:52PM

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119585843#Comment_119585843

Kinda sucks the fun out of it.

I don't think it was my dream to chase some stupid process that no one seems to care about other than to tick a box on a report that no one will read. 7yr old me would say urrrghhh.

Furze99 · 07-09-2022 08:06PM

I suspect a deal of issues could be caught by more testing. There's a bit of a 'suck it and see' approach. Just put it out there, let the real world test it and maybe fix the user interface and bugs then.

Still laughing at OPs story re staff fixing their issues by deleting inconvenient checks!

My own pet hate are so called upgrades where the flow and form of the previous seems quite lost and you have to search around for ages to figure out how to do something that could easily be completed in minutes previously. Facebook have done it a couple of times, my current dislike is Elementor as used on WordPress sites. I spent an hour getting increasingly frustrated recently trying to navigate some upgrade.

Flinty997 · 07-09-2022 08:13PM

We call that "live testing".

circadian · 07-09-2022 08:17PM

I'm just gonna sit in my corner and continue to focus on IaC. You lot are all mad.

Markus Antonius · 07-09-2022 10:16PM

In the 10 or so years of using windows 7 I don't remember having a single issue.

With windows 10 something horrid happens once a week at least - changes not saved, file lost due to a cloud sync error, scheduled restart closed all my programs now have to recover them.

The problem is that people don't care what issues things have becasue they think the latest thing is always the best. I'm sure someone will get offended with me saying 7 is better than 10...

Ray Palmer · 07-09-2022 10:32PM

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119586268#Comment_119586268

Never said that size floppy. The amstrad CPC 6128 came with a floppy drive of its own size and my dad’s accountant used the same. You could get a floppy drive for the Commadores. Tape was the main form but cartridges and floppy drives existed and were used. I am glad I did more than most of my peers. They spent it on football which I found boring.

i had more responsibilities than many by choice my brother did none of this stuff and he was older. When did you start using CAD? I was using it in 92 and it was very specialised equipment

Lewis_Benson · 07-09-2022 11:08PM

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119587378#Comment_119587378

Windows7 was a fine OS, probably the best designed OS MS did in terms of design and user interface.

I don't mind windows 10, it works, dont have a choice in enterprise, you have to be on an OS that can be patched for security vulnerabilities.

We still have a few server 2008r2 boxes on our infrastructure that need their apps migrated and then the OS Shut down.

AllForIt · 07-09-2022 11:16PM

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119583432#Comment_119583432

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QpWhugUmV5U

Computer - Build me a nice website

07-09-2022 11:19PM

I got a ZX81 in 1982 and a ZX Spectrum in early 1984. We had a black and white portable (purchased in late 70s) so both were plugged into that. About one third of my class in the CBS had computers then. The richest lads had BBC Micros and Commodore 64s. One had an Oric-1, another a Vic 20. The rest of us had Spectrums and there was loads of game trading done.

riclad · 07-09-2022 11:39PM

The problem is everyone is used to using mobile phones, tablets , no one uses drag and drop apart from pc users , so drop down menus are standard , gen z grew up using apple, android, mobile devices, see Wtf tech blog, its about programmers making stupid tech errors, or company's using old versions of software, different versions, no updates, programmers have to design for users 16 to 60 eg so software is usually designed for drop down menus, drag and drop does not work on mobile devices. There's probably 50 year old djs, TV producers saying 20 years ago tv music was better than it is now I the old days like 90s most people used pcs or laptops, it was kind of a nerd hobby, or a gamer techie hobby, a pc in the 90s was 1000 euro

Now everyone uses phones, tablets, so it's not just a nerd hobby for minoritys

H3llR4iser · 07-09-2022 11:43PM

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119585843#Comment_119585843

This - you definitely hit the nail on the head. I've been working in or around software development for the last 20-something years, and I've witnessed the descent into this state of madness. "Agile" is just an excuse for "never finished" and to be officially let to release programs in a state that is often borderline unusable ("minimum viable features" my ass, it's more "minimum BILLABLE features").

The biggest issue by far is the lack of specifications, as you mention: product management produces some simple, useless "GUI mockup" in the form of a PNG file (I've even seen badly compressed JPGs); Then a GUI team that is made of DEVELOPERS and not designers, implement what is effectively their own interpretation of said mockup - and then QA tests according their own interpretation of whatever the dev team serves them. No amount of "communication" will solve the issue of missing/poor specs.

The issue mentioned in the OP is exactly a result of that - the function was implemented without a specification, nobody looked at it twice. And when they did, "best interpretation" was the approach - the programmer working on it clearly happened to be unfamiliar with how international phone numbers are encoded...et voila', you have a sh1tty implementation!

Flinty997 · 07-09-2022 11:44PM

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119587491#Comment_119587491

Wow you had all the toys. 😱

They had an early dos version in college. (and 3D Studio (dos)). Did all the certs in it, then worked in visualization It was the era of CDRoms and "Multimedia"

riclad · 07-09-2022 11:50PM

I like windows 7,i have no problem with windows 10, never lost any data, windows 7 is full of security issues, no longer supported, no updates, the problem is see is many games, apps presume you have a 24 7 online connection. I think every techie has nostalgia, when you are over 50,in my day you had to know your pc, os Language, we had 500meg ram, and a 20gig hardrive. Some factory's or company's use windows 7 because certain devices or machines don't work with windows 10.windows 7 was not designed to be online 24,7

Flinty997 · 07-09-2022 11:52PM

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119587378#Comment_119587378

Windows 10 GUI is just Windows 7 with fluff. The drivers are better though.

Cloud stuff isn't really the OS.

riclad · 08-09-2022 12:22AM

When I went to school there was no official. computer course, on the curriculum maybe UK schools had pcs or the bbc micro, Sinclair spectrums or commodore amigas were popular.

riclad · 08-09-2022 04:34AM

Windows os has basic design standards for Windows menus , folders, like shortcuts, drop down menus, file icons, apple has its own style of menus, that seems to change every few years, it's up to the app designers to design an interface for each app it has to be usable for non tech experts , eg the public, children, older people,

People buy phones, tablets, they don't take a course how to use an iPhone , smartphone,

I would not expect a phone to have all the options , menus that windows 7,10 has , most apps are pretty simple, listen to music, read books, post photos or videos, unless it's an app designed for professional users like music

Composition, video editing. It seems all passwords must be at least 8 nos, letters, on all security, user forms. You seem to be complaining that you no longer need to be an expert to use a pc, most people just use the browser, click on chrome Firefox , 90 percent of the time or use the pc as a media, music player.

Yes 40 years ago most of the public did not buy pcs, they were expensive and slow, they mostly bought games consoles,

I think it's good that pcs are cheapet now faster and easier to use by non experts

Ray Palmer · 08-09-2022 09:06AM

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119587777#Comment_119587777

2 computers over 5 years where one was used for a business is not a lot of toys. The CAD I used was in college and was not DOS based. Very complicated specialist mouse and mouse pad to use it.

Seems somebody else has memories like me about people having computers in the 80s. So I am not as odd as you make me out to be.

Ray Palmer · 08-09-2022 09:07AM

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119587706#Comment_119587706

Glad I wasn’t the only one who remembers the use of computers. We’re you from a rich area because that is what people claim here

BrianD3 · 08-09-2022 09:16AM

So is the problem here that IT people are too "nerdy" or not nerdy enough. Or are lacking diligence or attention to detail. Or people who had no real interest in or aptitude for IT have chosen it as a career because of the perception that riches await.

A lot of people in various professions are winging it. Once they get paid, they have not a shred of guilt about doing a sloppy job and leaving a mess behind them. Too busy (or think they are) to give much thought to anything. Blurt out or throw down whatever comes into theIr head and if it appears to solve a problem (for now) or get someone off their back (for now), it's good. I have experienced this with various professions from doctors to scientists to tradesmen.

Flinty997 · 08-09-2022 09:21AM

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119588243#Comment_119588243

ZX81 was about €200 in todays money. That was one of the main selling points.

https://nosher.net/archives/computers/adve_048

Ray Palmer · 08-09-2022 09:25AM

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119588301#Comment_119588301

Look back and you will see I said it was the most popular. By 86 about 50% of my class had computers which as you can see is viable unlike your earlier claims. The price dropped from the initial

The deterioration of IT

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