Confession: I got through a 41 year career in IT, mostly in banking and government, without ever compiling or running a COBOL program. I recently saw A very short introduction to COBOL, which describes how to install COBOL on a Mac and how to compile and run a very simple COBOL program. So I tried this on Ubuntu Linux 20.04.
Continue readingIrish Class, March 7, 2016
<!–
Fadas: áéíóúÁÉÍÓÚ
–>
| Sháraigh na mná Harry Stottle, is sháraigh Harry Stottle an diabhal | Women were beyond Aristotle, and he was cleverer than the Devil. | |
| Harry Stottle | Aristotle | (!) |
| sáraigh | overcome, pass a limit, … | |
My title at work is “Principal Database Administrator.” My employer is looking for another one, to be my peer. Here is the job posting. I helped write it, and it did not get too badly garbled by the HR process. If you want the official view of what I do at work, this is it. If you have the relevant background, and are willing to work closely with me, feel free to apply.
Irish Class, October 1, 2012
<!–
Fadas: áéíóúÁÉÍÓÚ
–>
“We don’t have the source code.”
I just saw these in an on-line discussion about something at my job that I have been working on since 2 PM (recall that today is Sunday).
On Sunday morning mia_mcdavid and our son James left here for a road trip. They drove to Michigan, to see Mia’s mother and other relatives. I have been alone here, except for the cat, who apparently regards me primarily as her servant. So what have I been doing? Continue reading
More than two years ago I took an introductory class on the Oracle database management system. Oracle is used in my organization, but not nearly as much as SQL Server, which is where I had been spending almost all my time. My supervisor was an experienced Oracle DBA and handled such tasks as came up. However, she just left, to take a job in the private sector. I have inherited the role of Oracle DBA. She gave me a lot of information before she left, but there was only so much she could cover in the available time. So I have a lot to figure out on my own. Oracle is very different.
Oracle here at work runs on Linux (Red Hat and Suse). All the time I have spent working on Linux at home will now pay off. The Linux support team hers is small (three people), but very good. I am looking forward to working with them.
Don’t do anything just because the vendor says it’s a good idea. Here’s why.
Just because your company is paying them thousands of dollars does not mean they are competent. I have seen a quite a few cases like this in my own experience.
… if IBM is involved it will get even more complicated. That is the story of my weekend.
(Channeling Poul Anderson)
