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Speaking of getting thanks for something, ...
When I was in grad school, I had a requirement to demonstrate knowledge of computer programming languages, to be certified by the Computer Sciences Dept. The folks there knew me and knew I could pass, but they said that the university required that I either take a course or take a challenge in the form of a project. So I wrote a bunch of subroutines that acted as a mid-level driver for plotter operations and that could be called from FORTRAN, ALGOL, or BASIC on a PDP-10a processor (a.k.a. KA-10). The program was SPLOT and it was used to make scientific charts on their large plotter. It did linear and logarithmic plots in X-Y style or in radial style. It also supported an extended plotter character set for plotting shapes on the charts if you were plotting more than one set of data on the same chart. It also handled lettering in multiple font sizes and a couple of different fonts. I worked my way through mapping out the pen up/down and move left/right/up/down for a total of five special character sets including Greek, Hebrew, Cyrillic, Roman (with serifs), and the special symbols. That made six because they had the Arial (sans serif) font already. I passed the challenge and handed in the project.
Perhaps 15 years later, I was on an interview at the New Orleans VA Center because they were hiring folks with knowledge of Digital Equipment Corp.s
VAX product line. I interviewed with several guys in the office. It turned out we know some people in common. One fellow said he had taken some computer science courses from UNO, which was where I was in grad school, but long after I left. He asked me about that and my SPLOT program camp up in discussion. To my absolute astonishment, he said he had used it and that he loved it because of the great graphs and charts he had been able to generate with it, and that his Master's Thesis in Engineering used several such plots. He revealed to me that my code had been used for at least 12 years after I left, and he didn't know if it was still in use after HE left. But that was an out-of-the-blue thank you that meant a lot.
I turned down the job because it was a lower salary than I was already making, but based on his having used my code and liking it, I could have had the job if I had wanted it.
When I was in grad school, I had a requirement to demonstrate knowledge of computer programming languages, to be certified by the Computer Sciences Dept. The folks there knew me and knew I could pass, but they said that the university required that I either take a course or take a challenge in the form of a project. So I wrote a bunch of subroutines that acted as a mid-level driver for plotter operations and that could be called from FORTRAN, ALGOL, or BASIC on a PDP-10a processor (a.k.a. KA-10). The program was SPLOT and it was used to make scientific charts on their large plotter. It did linear and logarithmic plots in X-Y style or in radial style. It also supported an extended plotter character set for plotting shapes on the charts if you were plotting more than one set of data on the same chart. It also handled lettering in multiple font sizes and a couple of different fonts. I worked my way through mapping out the pen up/down and move left/right/up/down for a total of five special character sets including Greek, Hebrew, Cyrillic, Roman (with serifs), and the special symbols. That made six because they had the Arial (sans serif) font already. I passed the challenge and handed in the project.
Perhaps 15 years later, I was on an interview at the New Orleans VA Center because they were hiring folks with knowledge of Digital Equipment Corp.s
VAX product line. I interviewed with several guys in the office. It turned out we know some people in common. One fellow said he had taken some computer science courses from UNO, which was where I was in grad school, but long after I left. He asked me about that and my SPLOT program camp up in discussion. To my absolute astonishment, he said he had used it and that he loved it because of the great graphs and charts he had been able to generate with it, and that his Master's Thesis in Engineering used several such plots. He revealed to me that my code had been used for at least 12 years after I left, and he didn't know if it was still in use after HE left. But that was an out-of-the-blue thank you that meant a lot.
I turned down the job because it was a lower salary than I was already making, but based on his having used my code and liking it, I could have had the job if I had wanted it.
