APL Jobs: Are we all hobbyists? : APL

Charles:

Excellent point.

I am an engineer, ex-aircraft designer, MBA, salesperson and entrepreneur.
It is utterly useless for me to search www.monster.com under the key word
"APL." Any jobs that may hit are pathetic in scope, pay and responsibility.

Like our Italian friend, they seem to want impossible credentials (23 year
old physicists that knows everything and is a "self starter" and a "team
player" and willing to work for burger flipping wages).

I have never in my career met a self starter who was a team player.

Anyone who discovers on her/his own the marvelous productivity of APL,
without any help or exposure from the schools, IT departments, Microsoft, or
the literature; is by definition an excellent candidate for ANY job in your
company, starting from the CEO position on down.

To find APL with no encouragement or help from anybody; that alone shows an
intellectual curiosity that is sadly missing in most job candidates.

If you want "out-of-the-box" thinkers, find someone who LOVES APL. But
please, please, make a realistic offer

...../Vess




"Charles Richmond" <richchas@comcast.net> wrote in message
news:4370F876.FBD418EF@comcast.net...
> Stefano \"WildHeart\" Lanzavecchia wrote:
>
>> > Where are the APL jobs?
>>
>> The company I work for is hiring new APL developers right now. We are
>> looking for young (23/27) people for a full time position. They must be
>> based in Milano and speak, read and write fluently Italian, possess or
>> almost possess a degree in Physics, Mathematics or Engineering
>> (preferably
>> not Computer Science). I think it's very unlikely that an
>> English/American
>> candidate could match the requirements...
>
> This may be the problem with a lot of programming jobs. I do *not* mean
> speaking Italian, or even being 23 to 27 years old. The problem as I see
> it...
> is that companies are *not* looking for programmers. Companies are looking
> for physicists or chemists or economists who can also program well.
>
> Programming is now looked at as a necessary ancillary skill...*not* the
> main
> attraction anymore. IMHO.
>
>

Vess Irvine wrote:

> Charles:
>
> Excellent point.
>
> I am an engineer, ex-aircraft designer, MBA, salesperson and entrepreneur.
> It is utterly useless for me to search www.monster.com under the key word
> "APL." Any jobs that may hit are pathetic in scope, pay and
> responsibility.

Generally speaking, advertised jobs fall into that category. The best jobs
are found by networking, not by looking in the want-ads.

> Like our Italian friend, they seem to want impossible credentials (23 year
> old physicists that knows everything and is a "self starter" and a "team
> player" and willing to work for burger flipping wages).

They're generally filling some organizational or statutory requirement by
posting such an ad--they already know who they're going to hire but for
some reason they have to go through the motions.

> I have never in my career met a self starter who was a team player.
>
> Anyone who discovers on her/his own the marvelous productivity of APL,
> without any help or exposure from the schools, IT departments, Microsoft,
> or the literature; is by definition an excellent candidate for ANY job in
> your company, starting from the CEO position on down.
>
> To find APL with no encouragement or help from anybody; that alone shows
> an intellectual curiosity that is sadly missing in most job candidates.
>
> If you want "out-of-the-box" thinkers, find someone who LOVES APL. But
> please, please, make a realistic offer
>
> ..../Vess
>
>
>
>
> "Charles Richmond" <richchas@comcast.net> wrote in message
> news:4370F876.FBD418EF@comcast.net...
>> Stefano \"WildHeart\" Lanzavecchia wrote:
>>
>>> > Where are the APL jobs?
>>>
>>> The company I work for is hiring new APL developers right now. We are
>>> looking for young (23/27) people for a full time position. They must be
>>> based in Milano and speak, read and write fluently Italian, possess or
>>> almost possess a degree in Physics, Mathematics or Engineering
>>> (preferably
>>> not Computer Science). I think it's very unlikely that an
>>> English/American
>>> candidate could match the requirements...
>>
>> This may be the problem with a lot of programming jobs. I do *not* mean
>> speaking Italian, or even being 23 to 27 years old. The problem as I see
>> it...
>> is that companies are *not* looking for programmers. Companies are
>> looking for physicists or chemists or economists who can also program
>> well.
>>
>> Programming is now looked at as a necessary ancillary skill...*not* the
>> main
>> attraction anymore. IMHO.
>>
>>

--
--John
to email, dial "usenet" and validate
(was jclarke at eye bee em dot net)

"David Liebtag" <liebtag@us.ibm.com> wrote in news:1132166946.583770
@r2d2.vermontel.net:

>> This is the first webserver I know for sure to be stated to be
>> written totally in APL.
>
> I think this just indicates that you're not fully informed.
>
> APL2 includes an HTTP server written entirely in APL.
>
> I believe APL2000's dialect also supports a web server.
>
> David Liebtag
>
>
>

Although I'd expect all the vendors to have tools to support webservers, I
don't think this is what gosi meant. Actually, I think someone (in
Chicago?) set up a site that looked like an early Yahoo which ran on APL.
The company name was Insight systems or something like that.

-----------------------------------------------------------------------
|\/| Randy A MacDonald | you can't pay for it,
|/\| ramacd@nbnet.nb.ca | even if you want to.
BSc(Math) UNBF'83 Sapere Aude | APL: If you can say it, it's done..
Natural Born APL'er | Demo website: http://142.166.105.71/
----------------------------------------------------(INTP)----{ gnat }-

"Björn Helgason" <gosinn@gmail.com> wrote in news:1132158640.773843.79150
@z14g2000cwz.googlegroups.com:

>
> Randy Macdonald wrote:
>> It's on my email .sig, which I've copied here. Suggestions welcome as
>> always.
>
> First impression:
>
> It looks good
>
> This is the first webserver I know for sure to be stated to be written
> totally in APL
>
> Great!
>
> Thanks!
>
> What APL are you using?
>
>

(I'm getting daily updates of comp.lang.apl from Google Groups; apologies
for the delay.)

I'm using APL2000
-----------------------------------------------------------------------
|\/| Randy A MacDonald | you can't pay for it,
|/\| ramacd@nbnet.nb.ca | even if you want to.
BSc(Math) UNBF'83 Sapere Aude | APL: If you can say it, it's done..
Natural Born APL'er | Demo website: http://142.166.105.71/
----------------------------------------------------(INTP)----{ gnat }-

In article <1131552381.980019.323470@o13g2000cwo.googlegroups .com>,
aleph0 <apl68000us@yahoo.com> wrote:
>>You keep asserting this. Now where and when in the real world has that actually happened?
>
>Have you ever seen an APL programming department with 300+ programmers?
>
>In fact, have you ever seen an APL programming department with more
>than 3 programmers?

Yes. It took half a dozen to support the Fixed Income Department of a
major investment bank.

Seth

Seth Breidbart wrote:

> In article <1131552381.980019.323470@o13g2000cwo.googlegroups .com>,
> aleph0 <apl68000us@yahoo.com> wrote:
>
>>>You keep asserting this. Now where and when in the real world has that actually happened?
>>
>>Have you ever seen an APL programming department with 300+ programmers?
>>
>>In fact, have you ever seen an APL programming department with more
>>than 3 programmers?
>
>
> Yes. It took half a dozen to support the Fixed Income Department of a
> major investment bank.

And there was a team of 5 at TECHNIP engineering, estimated to do the
work of 25 FORTRAN programmers. However that was at the time of the 4341
and 3277GA/Tektronix graphic terminal, which does not make us any
younger :-(

aleph0 wrote:
>>Not an answer. Do you have a case history in which a large IT department
>>was replaced by a smaller group as the result of adopting APL?
>
>
> I think you've missed my point; I was saying that despite the strength
> of APL being able to reduce burocracy in IT, it simply does NOT happen
> !
>
> "" ..and is at the same time APL's big disadvantage in that the
> insecurity
> of IT managers is what makes them try to make themselves "independant"
> of the "specialist" by hiring a 10 fold burocracy - an existing APL
> discussion thread handles this one ! ""
>
> i.e. it does NOT happen, BECAUSE OF the above !!
>
> Do you "now" get my point ?

Perhaps an example or two of the reverse situation would suffice? Eg.
the replacement of a small productive APL IT department with the bloated
headcount of another programming language? I have no examples to offer,
but seem to remember a few complaints along this line posted in this
forum in the past.

--
Jerry wa2rkn <<gadolinium at earthlink dot net>>