• Which the release of FS2020 we see an explosition of activity on the forun and of course we are very happy to see this. But having all questions about FS2020 in one forum becomes a bit messy. So therefore we would like to ask you all to use the following guidelines when posting your questions:

    • Tag FS2020 specific questions with the MSFS2020 tag.
    • Questions about making 3D assets can be posted in the 3D asset design forum. Either post them in the subforum of the modelling tool you use or in the general forum if they are general.
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    • Questions about airport design can be posted in the FS2020 airport design forum. Once airport development tools have been updated for FS2020 you can post tool speciifc questions in the subforums of those tools as well of course.
    • Questions about terrain design can be posted in the FS2020 terrain design forum.
    • Questions about SimConnect can be posted in the SimConnect forum.

    Any other question that is not specific to an aspect of development or tool can be posted in the General chat forum.

    By following these guidelines we make sure that the forums remain easy to read for everybody and also that the right people can find your post to answer it.

How programmers and users see each other...

Fortunately, I dropped out of college.

My stepson got a bachelor's degree and now makes about $200K as a financial adviser. Luckily he didn't go for his master's as it probably would have priced him out of the necessary entry level jobs... and with no work history, no job offers!

Experience is everything outside of the academic job market. A good interviewer can tell in 2 minutes if you know your field of expertise.

Dick
 
I read somewhere recently that someone in the UK with a degree in the performing arts or history can look forward to a higher starting salary than someone with a degree in pharmacology (that is a pharmacist) Go figure what an upside down world we live in
 
scruffyduck said:
I read somewhere recently that someone in the UK with a degree in the performing arts or history can look forward to a higher starting salary than someone with a degree in pharmacology (that is a pharmacist) Go figure what an upside down world we live in
Click to expand...

Supply and demand.
 
w5A2dF6.jpg


Payware companies might be able to relate.
 
The picture is funny, Bill.
Is it possible for the guys on the right of the picture to become a guy on the left by learning on line?
 
The swing analogy is more reminiscent of the methods used many years ago - months spent by systems analysts documenting the detailed needs of the users, months spent then writing down those needs in program specifications to give to programmers, months spent by the programmers writing code to satisfy those needs, further time spent testing the resulting code and then the big day - the users finally see what their new system looks like.

New methods came along to help - users involved from start to finish in the project, checks at various stages to ensure that everyone is talking about the same thing, mock-ups easily produced, programming languages easily understood by users (and programmers!) - all this to ensure that the users know from the very start what the analyst and programmers were producing.

There is no need these days for users to be shocked, disappointed or complaining of the output of a computer project.

I cannot see why flight simulation projects should be any different :)

Walter
 
BaiterOne said:
...I cannot see why flight simulation projects should be any different :)
Click to expand...

Possibly because most FS projects are not run by well-staffed multidisciplinary teams using a highly organised communication pipeline with T C Mits (The Celebrated Man-in-the-Street)? I particularly enjoyed the "programming languages easily understood by users" bit :rotfl: 'cos we just don't have that for FS!
 
Walter, I remember those days well! In fact, my first real job after graduating from the University of Florida was in "Systems Analysis and Design" working for the Burroughs Corporation. My "career" with them was rather short lived however, since I had mistakenly thought I'd been hired to actually do "systems analysis and design..."

Silly me. On only my fourth assignment I was sent out to San Francisco to study and analyze the needs of a prospective client. After spending a full week at the task, I ultimately advised the prospective client that they didn't actually need an expensive B5500 system, but rather needed to keep two secretaries who despised one another as isolated from one another as much as possible. You see, they had been spending more time sabotaging one another's work than doing their own. These actions caused the bottleneck in their accounting that triggered failed audits, and hampered their production estimates!

Shortly after returning to the home office I was informed in no uncertain terms that I was being terminated from my position, for failing to "close the sale." It turned out that they weren't the least bit concerned whether buying a B5500 system would solve the customer's problems, but rather that a sale be made. They expected that I'd have used my skills at "systems analysis and design" to spin a wonder tale of how much more efficient they would be and bring back a signed contract!
 
Bill, I can totally believe your story. I spent close to 35 years doing corporate accounting at various companies and I will never work for a corporation again. It may mean that I'll be living in a cardboard box under an I-95 overpass in the future but I will never again work for a corporation.

Ed
 
n4gix said:
Shortly after returning to the home office I was informed in no uncertain terms that I was being terminated from my position, for failing to "close the sale." It turned out that they weren't the least bit concerned whether buying a B5500 system would solve the customer's problems, but rather that a sale be made. They expected that I'd have used my skills at "systems analysis and design" to spin a wonder tale of how much more efficient they would be and bring back a signed contract!
Click to expand...

This is kind of a real life version of these "We found 5 problems on your computer! Click here to fix them for $4.99!" pop ups.
 
The real irony is that a decade later, when this prospective customer did have need for a computerized system, they managed to track me down and hired me as an independent consultant to make sure they weren't being scammed suckered by the IBM representatives! :laughing:
 
Well honesty does pay off in the end....Cool stuff Bill

@jtanabodee When I joined Milviz 4 years ago I was on the left. I did have to get some 1 on 1 help from 3 other programmers (Chris Dub, Larry Zambrano, and our much loved legendary N4GIX) before the picture started to become clear and FSDeveloper became useful to me but if you consider where I am now....I would darn well say there is hope. It requires dedication however.
 
It does require dedication... but it pays off!
I wouldn't dare dream about having an income from programming just a year and a bit ago... and now I do get small, but existing pocket money. Maybe in a while I could actually make a career off it :)
 
I never worked in a commercial environment as such, working in an internal IT Dept in a local authority - we were always tasked with replacing current manual / computer processes with an 'improved' IT process, using the hardware currently available and the current development environment.

We always believed that the outside developers and consultants were out for the quick buck and the massive costs of future maintenance. I am glad to hear that at least one or two consultants saw the obvious answers to the customers' problems - seems a shame to lose a job over offering the simple and correct solution.

I believe we ourselves, in our own quiet and unsophisticated way, managed to achieve 'customer satisfaction' in the vast majority of projects - although sometimes the customer didn't really know the extent of what could be (honestly) achieved using technology and we sometimes more-or-less lead them by their noses into a technology solution to their problems.

I also think that users (customers) didn't quite catch on to the 4G programming languages meant to let them have their own input into the actual programs or subroutines. The programmers couldn't stand the 4G languages either as they weren't powerful or detailed enough to actually answer the users' needs. We always had to write real code and not pseudocode!

Retired now, I tried C++ for a few 'batch' programs in the last few years, found it difficult, never developed anything for FS itself with it. I really think that the simplicity of XML spoils me in that I can potter around and develop a gauge of my own in a very short length of time (though I probably then spend hours redeveloping it, adding and subtracting - never really happy that it is complete).

If I had written down my requirements properly at the start then I could have matched the output with those and signed off on the development and paid myself some exorbitant sum! :)

Anyway, we loved our users! (lying through my teeth - I don't know what smiley covers that)

Walter
 
Anyone remember "flow charting?" To this day I still use flow charts to design my logic. I think it's largely a forgotten art these days! :scratchch
 
n4gix said:
Anyone remember "flow charting?" To this day I still use flow charts to design my logic. I think it's largely a forgotten art these days! :scratchch
Click to expand...

Oh boy. I am still taking classes and this flow charting is killing me.

I always do it the other way round - program than chart(have to produce the chart as its graded). I always already have a mental idea of what is the code going to be, so I never needed a flow chart....
 
I am still doing flowcharts to conceptualize properly both for me and for the customer (if they want). Although with OOP it's often a couple of black boxes. And I need to find a way how to properly chart multithreaded apps...
 
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