Well, 35 years in systems & programming at a bunch of $1+Billion companies. A couple of honors degree. Another $250k in additional training, and still going.
I dont' really work in web stuff, but, have learned PHP to go along with the other dozen or so languages that I have worked with over the years.
I agree with Libertine that a lot them burn out by the time they are 35(or moved up into management). Most only got in for the money anyways. There are only a few like myself(maybe 2-5%) that actually enjoy it, and don't go the management route. Been a manager a few times, and I get bored trying to figure out how many pencils I have to budget for, etc. Although putting me under MBAs working as Project Leaders with no programming experience is just inviting me to take them out to the parking lot.
As Warchild pointed out, there are some pretty complex stuff that the larger companies have had time to develope. Also there are Enterprise packages that are 100s of millions of lines of code. This stuff doesn't run on PCs though. Figure $20 million for hardware, plus another $10 million for software.
Quote:
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Originally Posted by GrouchyAdmin:
Code:
XOR %reg, %reg
vs
MOV.B 0x00, %reg
to save a byte or a cycle doesn't do much these days. |
Things like bit sorts, etc. are still used a quite a bit. Terrabyte data mines need all the performance you can get. A neighbor also does machine language game programming. He has to fight off the companies wanting to hire him.
Also, I've seen newbies load everything into tables and then try to update with them. Nice way to get into multiple cross locks. Actually had a college stop teaching that stuff, because we don't allow it out in the real world.
Warchild:
On high access files(Client Master, etc.) you might want to look into DB fragmentation. Split your master file into different files based on how often each field is accessed. Use joining or extra reads to pick up the additional info only as needed.
For huge transaction files try partitioning so that each user/date gets a new file. Creates a zillion files, but you just enumerate the required files as you need them for consolidated stuff. You can also pickup some performance by arranging Ifs/Cases in the most often used order.
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Originally Posted by Warchild
Real programmers are a breed apart from everyone else.
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I've been at it so long that I even do systems when I'm out in the pub hitting on the females.