Subj : Re: Doc/noDoc? (was: CV, work-history, 91C, CompSci?, Applet? ...) To : comp.programming,comp.software-eng From : Chris Hills Date : Thu Sep 15 2005 12:02 am In article , Robert Maas, see http://tinyurl.com/uh3t writes >> From: Chris Hills >> There is a system called Literate Programming where the >> documentation and the source are the same thing. ... >> It never caught on. Started out using Pascal and TeX > ......long irrelevant ramble cut..... >> Yes I agree HTML or more often XML I think is becoming the norm as it >> can do more in on-line documentation. However this includes fancy >> colours, fonts, links and diagrams not plain ASCII > >XML doesn't have any fonts etc. All of those user-presentation issues >would be handled by a stylesheet which is separate from the XML ...... another irrelevant ramble cut.... >> My worry is that he is not gainfully employed doing "something". > >That bothers me too. I wish that somebody would hire me from time to >time, so the idea of being "between jobs" is more credible during times >of unemployment. (Of course being employed all the time, as I was until >1991, SO you have been out of work since 91... that is nearly 14 years! >> I have done many jobs as times and conditions dictate. > >Apparently you have been fortunate that if nobody offers you a job in >some area where you have experience, somebody else will offer you a job >in some area where you have no experience whatsoever. I haven't been so >fortunate. Some jobs don't require a lot of experience. Also it depends on how much you want to work. There are vast numbers of jobs that just require an adult with the basic skills of life. >> However not to work for a decade because no one offers you one type >> of job. > >You misunderstand the situation: Nobody has offered me *any* job of >*any* type whatsoever recently. I even applied as a cashier at a >gasoline service station, and as a library page, but wasn't given >either job. (The library page job had about a hundred applicants for >two positions, in 1999, before the current recession started). Then as has been stated several times here the problem is likely to be your social skills. >> I note that when I suggested a change of career the response was "I >> have" from bespoke Sw to commercial SW. To my that is not a career >> change. That is just a slightly different type of project. > >From funded research and R&D, under supervision of a university >(funding from NSF, IBM, and sometimes university special funding), to >commercial software-for-sale: Virtually all the job ads require 3-5 >years shipping commercial shrink-wrap products. I have NEVER done a shrink wrapped product in my life. > None of my 21 years >prior R/R&D research ever shipped a commercial software product, >especially not shrink-wrapped, so given that none of my prior >experience counts for anything in seeing a new job, I see it as a >career change, where I must start out at entry-level in the new field, >where the old field would be of much value to me personally in >understanding some aspects of the new career, but the new employer >considers me to have no relevant experience whatsoever. It is not a career change it is still software. The problem the industry has moved on where you have not. >> The answer is to get out there and do something. > >If you mean go to some company, walk in the door, and start working, >without permission of anyone at that company, that's a crime: >Trespassing. No I did not mean that. All the way through this thread it is answers like this that demonstrate why since 1991 you have been unemployed. It is your attitudes and way of dealing with people that is the problem. -- \/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\ \/\/\/\/\ Chris Hills Staffs England /\/\/\/\/ /\/\/ chris@phaedsys.org www.phaedsys.org \/\/\ \/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/ .