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Corona Virus discussion

This is the single best essay I know of on COVID-19. I know one of the authors (Rob Wallace).

monthlyreview.org

Monthly Review | COVID-19 and Circuits of Capital

COVID-19, the illness caused by coronavirus SARS-CoV-2, the second severe acute respiratory syndrome virus since 2002, is now officially a pandemic. As of late March, whole cities are sheltered in…
monthlyreview.org monthlyreview.org
 
bigbadwolf said:
This is the single best essay I know of on COVID-19. I know one of the authors (Rob Wallace).

monthlyreview.org

Monthly Review | COVID-19 and Circuits of Capital

COVID-19, the illness caused by coronavirus SARS-CoV-2, the second severe acute respiratory syndrome virus since 2002, is now officially a pandemic. As of late March, whole cities are sheltered in…
monthlyreview.org monthlyreview.org
Click to expand...
Do they do the maths? Imperial College and Oxfod both claim to have models but can't/won't publish them.



Still, I think Wallace might be right.
 
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Daniel Duffy said:
At moments like this we are reminded of the fact that COBOL is most important language in the world.

https://www.theregister.co.uk/2020/04/05/new_jersey_seeks_cobol_volunteers/

COBOL-coding volunteers sought as creaking mainframes slow New Jersey's coronavirus response
Click to expand...
It is quite amazing how old those systems are. During the 2008 crisis, I remember reading about a consulting firm focused exclusively on COBOl (Cobol Cowboys | Professionals for Legacy COBOL Systems). Must be quite a life to occupy such a niche.
 
longgamma said:
It is quite amazing how old those systems are. During the 2008 crisis, I remember reading about a consulting firm focused exclusively on COBOl (Cobol Cowboys | Professionals for Legacy COBOL Systems). Must be quite a life to occupy such a niche.
Click to expand...
A friend of mine in Ireland works remotely on Cobol and JCL code in insurance.
Python and Java are the front-ends.

Cough, I was a certified COBOL programmer in 1981.

Anyone remenber Y2K? (BTW my code used YYYY-MM-DD, not YY-MM-DD!) At the time they took the pensioners out of the homes and put them to work.


.. and we noticed a yuge surge in C++/OOP when MFC was introduced 1995 (+ Windows 16 to Windows 32 and GUIs). Each gui was an object.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Microsoft_Foundation_Class_Library
 
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Daniel Duffy said:
A friend of mine in Ireland works remotely on Cobol and JCL code in insurance.
Python and Java are the front-ends.

Cough, I was a certified COBOL programmer in 1981.

Anyone remenber Y2K? (BTW my code used YYYY-MM-DD, not YY-MM-DD!) At the time they took the pensioners out of the homes and put them to work.


.. and we noticed a yuge surge in C++/OOP when MFC was introduced 1995 (+ Windows 16 to Windows 32 and GUIs). Each gui was an object.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Microsoft_Foundation_Class_Library
Click to expand...

Thanks for sharing! I also came across Technical Debt (Technical debt - Wikipedia) and how it bites at the worst possible time.

It is amazing to think that programming languages and toolkits we consider cutting edge today would be considered obsolete in ten years.
 
longgamma said:
Thanks for sharing! I also came across Technical Debt (Technical debt - Wikipedia) and how it bites at the worst possible time.

It is amazing to think that programming languages and toolkits we consider cutting edge today would be considered obsolete in ten years.
Click to expand...
For sure. I have seen dozens drop in their steps..
Care to draw up a shortlist (C++ excluded)?

I started on Fortran IV/66 for semiconductors and Boltzmann radiation problems in a large multinational Dutch company, then in CAD. The Achilles heel was no contact with the underlying hardware. Enter C.
Ten years later a spate of OO languages (e.g. Smalltalk) but they vanished as snow before the sun because of their no contact with the underlying hardware. Enter C++.

And Basic will also be heat forever I suspect.

This feels like writing my memoirs :)
 
Technical debt (also known as design debt[1] or code debt, but can be also related to other technical endeavors) is a concept in software development that reflects the implied cost of additional rework caused by choosing an easy (limited) solution now instead of using a better approach that would take longer.[2]

Python?

Perceived short-term benefits and long-term maintenance nightmares.

An even bigger issue in general - Software Design as an engineering discipline is almost non-existent.
 
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Ugo takes a critical look at preppers preparing for a Mad Max scenario:

In the end, I think the best place to be in a time of crisis is exactly where I am: in a medium-sized city. It is the last place that the government will try to keep under control as long as possible, and not a likely target for someone armed with nukes or other nasty things. Why do I say that? Look at the map, here.

This is a map of the Roman Empire at its peak. Note the position of the major cities: the Empire collapsed and disappeared, but most of the cities of that time are still there, more or less with the same name, the new buildings built in place of the old ones, or near them. Those cities were built in specific places for specific reasons, availability of water, resources, or transportation. And so it made sense for the cities to be exactly where they were, and where they still are. Cities turned out to be extremely resilient. And how about Roman villas in the countryside? Well, many are being excavated today, but after the fall of the Empire, they were abandoned and never rebuilt. It must have been terribly difficult to defend a small settlement against all the horrible things that were happening at the time of the fall of the Empire.
Click to expand...

cassandralegacy.blogspot.com

Collapse: Where can we find a safe refuge?

A blog about collapse as caused by depletion of mineral resources and climate change
cassandralegacy.blogspot.com cassandralegacy.blogspot.com
 
longgamma said:
Thanks for sharing! I also came across Technical Debt (Technical debt - Wikipedia) and how it bites at the worst possible time.

It is amazing to think that programming languages and toolkits we consider cutting edge today would be considered obsolete in ten years.
Click to expand...
The link on Technical Debt is really very good. I suppose it's like "you reap what you sow".
 
Daniel Duffy said:
For sure. I have seen dozens drop in their steps..
Care to draw up a shortlist (C++ excluded)?

I started on Fortran IV/66 for semiconductors and Boltzmann radiation problems in a large multinational Dutch company, then in CAD. The Achilles heel was no contact with the underlying hardware. Enter C.
Ten years later a spate of OO languages (e.g. Smalltalk) but they vanished as snow before the sun because of their no contact with the underlying hardware. Enter C++.

And Basic will also be heat forever I suspect.

This feels like writing my memoirs :)
Click to expand...

Just curious, didnt you feel frustrated to learn new programming languages and their quirks? Or did you like your work so much that you didn't mind investing time in a new language.

I wonder how Python would fare a decade into the future. Would it be relegated to the fate Perl has suffered? I hope it sticks around for a bit so that I might stay relevant with it. Python,C++, Java are probably the new COBOL. In twenty years time we'd be reading articles on banks rushing to patch legacy Java code.
 
longgamma said:
Just curious, didnt you feel frustrated to learn new programming languages and their quirks? Or did you like your work so much that you didn't mind investing time in a new language.

I wonder how Python would fare a decade into the future. Would it be relegated to the fate Perl has suffered? I hope it sticks around for a bit so that I might stay relevant with it. Python,C++, Java are probably the new COBOL. In twenty years time we'd be reading articles on banks rushing to patch legacy Java code.
Click to expand...
Over a period of 40 years I stuck to Fortran, C/C++ and C#. Lately Python but it's easy. So, 1 language per 10 years :)
I dabbled in other languages but many were culled before they wasted my time. e.g. I ditched Java in 1997.
I am not a CS language fan as such, as languages for me must fit into the business and industrial setting in which I work.
In my alma mater (TCD), they had CS department since the 60s, but was 1980 before this happened in Netherlands. Back then, people were engineers, programmers and systems analysts (pre-fancy name era :)).

C++, Java are probably the new COBOL
Not for stuff that COBOL does.
 
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Some trenchant analysis from the Saker.

www.unz.com

NWO, globalism and US 'leadership' â RIP

'And the unbelievers plotted and planned, and God too planned, and the best of planners is God' Quran, Sura Al-Imran (The Family of Imran) - 3:54 It has been pretty obvious for many years already that the AngloZionist Empire was not viable, that it had to tank sooner or later. There were two...
www.unz.com
 
one can see the sharp divide first hand: many ppl r really struggling financially currently; while some ppl like me are shopping corona car deals
 

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