Flightbeam just announced that they have been working on projects for Fs2020 

6 minutes ago, Dominique_K said:

Long ago, I was  working in a poor socialist country. The State foodstore had a very nice street window with tin cans carrying appetizing labels. That was for the show. The cans were empty and not for sale

I remember seeing the same thing in brick and mortar computer stores! 😄 Pre-release softare, empty boxes.  The more things change, the more they stay the same.

Hook

11 minutes ago, Dominique_K said:

Long ago, I was  working in a poor socialist country. The State foodstore had a very nice street window with tin cans carrying appetizing labels. That was for the show. The cans were empty and not for sale, the store had not much beyond rationed basic staple. But with the can on the front they could call themselves a  grocery. 

Poor elderly Natasha walked slowly and painfully to the store and noted there were two lines waiting to enter. She came to the end of one line and asked the person standing there, "Excuse me, but is this the no-bread line?" "No dear, this is the no-toilet paper line, the no-bread line is over there," as she pointed in the distance... 

1 hour ago, LHookins said:

You can get some idea of what I can do if you google M1TP2 Hookins.  My first project after I retired.

Oh man...that really brings me back. The late 90s truly were the Golden Age of sims.

James

1 minute ago, honanhal said:

Oh man...that really brings me back. The late 90s truly were the Golden Age of sims.

I was reading the M1TP2 manual a couple of years ago and getting excited about the sim.  This is after I'd played Steel Beasts a lot. 😄 

The map and scenario editor found new life in Gunship! which used the same format for files. I was surprised to see mention of my name on at least one Russian site dedicated to those games.

Hook

I always liked working for smaller companies and have been through three IPOs.  One thing I really enjoyed was the "many hats" thing.

I also worked for my fair share of big companies and found out the colloquial names we called things weren't always the formal names.  Like talking about "bad code."  I think the first thing that surprised me the most was anthropomorphizing the computer.  "He doesn't like that parameter."  That was on my very first job in the Pentagon.

Hook

I really don't like the word bad code. It's more like "unoptimize" to me. I know many programmer take the easy way when they code. I am not saying every devs are  lazy but...

Make it work.  Make it right.  Make it fast.  In THAT order.

Hook

15 minutes ago, Rob_Ainscough said:

But if anyone has worked for a large Bank, you know things can go "slowly" (mostly because it's a mainframe environment and change control required 20 signatures).

Oh, if you could only see it now, Rob. I got my start at NationsBank later merging with Bank of America.  I Work for a different large bank now (at least until encore career as a commercial pilot kicks back in), but the stories are very similar. Thanks for sharing. It helps reinforce that despite differing preferences and opinions, we are all real people behind these keyboards.

Hey Rob, I've been in IT for 25 years. I agree that often for timeline purposes, decision are made that often cost more in the long term. It's all about compromises and having delivery sooner. This is even more true today now that the IT world has change to Agile and more iteration. It's easy to only see no further than you 2 weeks sprint.  Eventually people will learned that Agile is not the solution to everything.

I spend all my coding time these days doing XML code.  Not only to drive gauges, but to implement more sophisticated engine internal functions.  I try to write the best code I can, but I am NOT going to try to optimize prior to the code working exactly the way I want because that would be a waste of time.  But once it's working as expected, I do several optimization passes.

Generally, if something is too slow, find a better algorithm. 🙂 

Hook

 

Edited July 21, 20205 yr by LHookins

11 minutes ago, fogboundturtle said:

Eventually people will learned that Agile is not the solution to everything

We’ve gone this far off topic, I guess there’s no harm in going a little further down the path.

The irony in the Agile methodology is the rigidity in its practice. 

1 minute ago, snglecoil said:

We’ve gone this far off topic, I guess there’s no harm in going a little further down the path.

The irony in the Agile methodology is the rigidity in its practice. 

Not really, It's the rigidity of people implementing agile.  I'm a certified product owner by the scrum alliance. I see this every day. People just don't get it. You don't have to do all the ceremonies. It's hard to go form Waterfall to Agile. Too many bad habits from the past.

2 minutes ago, fogboundturtle said:

Not really, It's the rigidity of people implementing agile.  I'm a certified product owner by the scrum alliance. I see this every day. People just don't get it. You don't have to do all the ceremonies. It's hard to go form Waterfall to Agile. Too many bad habits from the past.

Yes, agree 100%. That’s the point I was intending to make.

1 minute ago, Rob_Ainscough said:

and that brings me to MSFS and P3D V5 ... both IMHO have been and will be released before they should have been.  How's that for bringing it sorta back to topic, maybe?

Nothing like economic pressure. 🙂 

All this makes me so very glad I retired in 2000 and am totally away from all that.

Hook