Experience
After a lifetime spent in an industry that changes so rapidly, my career looks like series of quests in search of the Magic "Developers Stone" - able to turn Ideas into Gold. Sadly with no end in sight. Decades spent honing skills in particular philosophies or technologies... become redundant with the next paradigm shift. What was bleeding-edge a decade ago is now consigned to the scrapheap. All efforts in continuous education and enterprise will eventually rewarded with obsolence and derision. However, the journey is its own reward, and I still enjoy writing code 4 decade after I began.
It is said that "all Politicial careers end in failure" - I would add to that, "all Computing careers end in incompetence". Here lies the bones of all the highly expensive technologies I have used in pursuit of building business systems for large companies. All of these were successes, and all have been forgotten.
Programing Langauges
Over decades the preferred programming language has changed more times than I can remember.
| Manufacturer | Name | Operating System | Time-span |
|---|---|---|---|
| Microsoft Corporation | C# | Windows | 2001-present, from an early beta of C# 1.0. About 19 years. |
| Microsoft Corporation | Visual Basic | Windows | 1992-present, from an Visual Basic 1.0 on Windows 3.1 to the .Net VB Winforms. About 28 years. |
| Microsoft Corporation | TypeScript | Windows | 2017-present, still learning. |
| Netscape Corporation | JavaScript | Windows | 1997-present, long front-end developer from early code in IE3 & Netscape Navigator. About 22 years. |
| IBM / International Business Machines | CSP | MVS | 1984-1994. A popular but crude Fourth Generation Language available on IBM mainframes. About 10 years. |
| Cincom Systems, Inc | Mantis | MVS | 1990-1992. A popular Fourth Generation Language for on IBM mainframes that still has customers today. About 2 years. |
| Borland Software Corporation | Pascal | Windows | 1981-2001. One of the most important milestones in Programming language development, and a language that inspired multiple generations of language developers. About 20 years. |
| Psion PLC | OPL | EPOC | 1990-1998. The base programming language for the Psion 3/5 on the EPOC platform. About 2 years. |
| IBM / International Business Machines | PL/I | MVS | 1982-1996. One of the most powerful programming languages available in the 80's & 90's. About 14 years. |
| IBM / International Business Machines | COBOL | MVS | 1982-1997. The most common programming language in the 70's, 80's & 90's, and still in use today on mission critical systems. About 16 years. |
| Wang Laboratories | RPG-II | VS | 1982. An example of a report building language that was hugely popular on a variety of "mini" computers during the 70's & 80's. |
| DEC / Digital Equipment | Basic-Plus | RSTS/E | 1982. A dialect of the BASIC programming language extended for professional business development. |
| Microsoft Corporation | MS BASIC (TRS) | TRSDOS | 1982. A dialect of the BASIC programming language extended for professional business development. |
| Niklaus Wirth | ALGOL/W | 360 Mainframes | 1981. A hugely undervalued language designed by the creator of Pascal, and used in many educational organisations. |
| IBM / International Business Machines | 370 Assembler | 370 Mainframes | 1982-1996. The base language of the bare metal of IBM Mainframes. About 14 years. |
| Zilog | Z80 Assembler | Z80 Processors | 1981. The base language of the popular Zilog Z80 processor, a clone of the Intel 8080. |
Relational Database Management Systems
Of all the software listed on this page, none has stood the test of time better than the RDBMS. Data is the lifeblood of any organisation, and companies fall or rise on the back of the quality and endurance of their data. Data is real, and data has value. Code will come & go, but data survives out of necessity.
The RDBMS emerged as a result of the work of Ted Codd in response to the shortcomings in all DMBS in the 60's & 70's. The principles that form the bedrock of the RDBMS have not changed in 40 years, and remain just as relevant today.
I have been a Developer and DBA using the RDBMS since 1984, and in that time I have used a wide array of the systems that exist.
| Manufacturer | Name | Time frame | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|
| Microsoft Corporation | Azure SQL Server | 2019 | The Azure "Database as a service" platform that implements a subset of Sql Server. |
| Microsoft Corporation | SQL Server | 1996-2020 | The Microsoft Relational Database Management System, derived originally from Sybase, and massively rewritten, extended and improved over the decades. |
| Oracle Corporation | Oracle | 2000-2019 | The first commercial RDBMS available on the market, and still the market leader to beat. |
| IBM | DB2 | 1983-2000 | For decades the most important RDBMS due to the power of the IBM Mainframe, but now an also-ran in a crowded field. |
| Microsoft Corporation | Jet (Access) | 1994-2010 | The RDBMS engine that underpins the Microsoft Access product. |
| Open Source | SQLite | 2001-2020 | Probably the most used RDBMS-like product in the world, with installations on every phone in existance. |
| Open Source | Firebird | 2020 | An extremely underrated RDBMS with an option to be used in embedded solutions. |
| SAP | Sybase | 1990 | One of the original commercial small-system RDBMS products, and the original source os Microsoft Sql Server. |
Scripting Languages
Distinct from Programming Languages is a group of languages used specifically to automate processes in IT life. These have increasingly become so complex and rich that it is now possible to use them to write a full suite of business systems, and while this is not advisable I'm sure that someone has done this.
Transaction Processing Monitors
The TP Monitor has been a mainstay of large enterprise computing since the 60's. They have been so successful that most ATM machines use TP systems built back in the 80's. Todays web based servers owe a great deal to their predecessors who proved a model that has been re-implemented using HTTP/HTML.
| Manufacturer | Name |
|---|---|
| Microsoft Corporation | (IIS) Internet Information Services |
| IBM / International Business Machines | CICS |
| IBM / International Business Machines | TSO |
| Adr / Applied Data Research | Roscoe |
| Adr / Applied Data Research | Vollie |
Platforms
These are the main platforms I have used to build applcations.
| Manufacturer | Hardware | Date | Operating System(s) |
|---|---|---|---|
| Microsoft Corporation | Azure | 2014-now | Microsoft Azure |
| Microsoft Corporation | Windows | 1992-now | Windows 3x/9x/NT/XP/10/Svr |
| IBM / International Business Machines | 9000 | 1990-1995 | MVS/ESA |
| IBM / International Business Machines | 3090 | 1986-1990 | MVS/ESA, XP |
| IBM / International Business Machines | 3084 | 1985-1986 | MVS/XA |
| IBM / International Business Machines | 4381 | 1984-1985 | MVS/SP |
| IBM / International Business Machines | 4341 | 1982-1984 | MVS/SP, DOS/VSE |
| PSION | Series 3/3a/5 | 1992-1999 | EPOC |
| DG / Data General | MV/8000 | 1982 | AOS/VS |
| DEC / Digital Equipment | PDP 11/34 | 1982 | RSTS/E |
| ICL / International Computers Limited | 2980 | 1982 | VME |
| Tandy Radio-Shack | TRS-80 | 1982 | TRSDOS |
Operating Systems
| Manufacturer | Name |
|---|---|
| Open Source / Linus Torvalds | Linux (Ubuntu) |
| Microsoft Corporation | Windows NT/XP/10/Svr |
| Microsoft Corporation | Windows 9x |
| Microsoft Corporation | Windows 3.x |
| Microsoft Corporation | MS-DOS & PC-DOS v3, 4, 5 & 6.2 |
| PSION | EPOC |
| IBM / International Business Machines | OS/2 1.3, 2.0, 2.1, 3.0 |
| IBM / International Business Machines | MVS SP & XP |
| IBM / International Business Machines | DOS/VSE |
| DEC / Digital Equipment | RSTS/E |
| ICL / International Computers Limited | VME |
| DG / Data General | AOS/VS |
| Tandy Radio-Shack | TRSDOS |