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Yes, we had 200 lbs of reference manuals, and life was simpler.
I just finished a whole bunch of googling to figure out how to bulk copy an archaic Access DBF file into SQL Server, using .NET 7. My comments in the code show some of the depth of the rabbit hole.
And yes, I still use FrontPage for article writing and I'll be damned if I'm going to uninstall it and Visio 2010 to install the 64 bit Jet drivers, so now my importer app is in x86 mode.
And stunningly, the .NET SqlBulkCopy thing is working perfectly.
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Marc Clifton wrote: And yes, I still use FrontPage for article writing
Noooooo.... Nooo Marc. My eyes. They're melting. Aaaaaggggggggggh. 
Jeremy Falcon
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hahaha. It's still the best darn editor for split HTML and WYSIWYG editing, IMO.
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You didn't get to try Expression Web 4 then?
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I guess that you are not using the same mainboard, disk, keyboard and screen as you did in the 1900s. So what happened to that machine? Or, I suppose, those machines that you have replaced. Didn't you keep keep any of them for running old SW? (and for that sake: HW. I've got several pieces of hardware that cannot be moved to my current machine for lack of interface / bus.)
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trønderen wrote: Didn't you keep keep any of them for running old SW?
Yes, and several are still sitting in my shed. None earlier than W95, it would be amusing to fire up Windows 3.1. Or a DOS box. I wonder what happened to the PDP/11 that I cut my teeth on (not literally) when I was in 7th grade.
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Not only write code but all the information that's available on EVERYTHING, it's amazing what Mr.Google knows.
Give me coffee to change the things I can and wine for those I can not!
PartsBin an Electronics Part Organizer - An updated version available! JaxCoder.com
Latest Article: Simon Says, A Child's Game
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This is one place where virtual machines really come in handy.
It's such a shame that the IT gestapo where I work won't let me use VirtualBox (which is free) and refuse to give me a license for the sanctioned VM package.
Software Zen: delete this;
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Gary R. Wheeler wrote: This is one place where virtual machines really come in handy.
Gary R. Wheeler wrote: It's such a shame that the IT gestapo where I work won't let me use VirtualBox (which is free) and refuse to give me a license for the sanctioned VM package
I can relate to that too... sadly
M.D.V. 
If something has a solution... Why do we have to worry about?. If it has no solution... For what reason do we have to worry about?
Help me to understand what I'm saying, and I'll explain it better to you
Rating helpful answers is nice, but saying thanks can be even nicer.
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They are trying to keep you focused.😁
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I currently work with someone who's officially retired, but sticks around because his software is VB6 and dBase and nobody knows how that stuff works.
He's currently converting everything to SQL Server, despite not knowing how SQL Server works (I don't know how he does it).
After that I get to rewrite his software to .NET (he already ported two application to .NET Framework 2, obviously he doesn't know how that works either).
Not particularly looking forward to inheriting that one 
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Sander Rossel wrote: how SQL Server works (I don't know how he does it).
Based on your description I would not expect linq. So he must be using SQL.
Since dBase code is just table based only thing he needs to learn is the basic SQL statements.
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My turbo pascal 2.0 manual was one handy paperback pocketbook. It was all you needed. Try that with c#. They keep adding stuff, when are they gooing to remove a lot of fluff?
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Kees van Sighem wrote: when are they gooing to remove a lot of fluff?
Hopefully not so soon, I cant get up-to-date to the last shiny ways and I am mostly using the old fashioned things.
M.D.V. 
If something has a solution... Why do we have to worry about?. If it has no solution... For what reason do we have to worry about?
Help me to understand what I'm saying, and I'll explain it better to you
Rating helpful answers is nice, but saying thanks can be even nicer.
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We wrote it much better back then.
Now we have internet, we have to find out everything ourselves as nothing gets documented, go to code project and other sites to ask other users how things work.
Before the internet, everything was properly documented, so we didn't need those forums.
So the answer is that it is much harder now than it was before the internet.
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atverweij wrote: We wrote it much better back then.
Well that must explain why we are on TLS 1.3 now. Because SSL and the previous versions of TLS were "better".
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You completely miss the point.
Before the internet there was no such thing as SSL or TLS.
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atverweij wrote: You completely miss the point.
Ah...you mean when the only source for learning Fortran was by reading the CDC Manual that was chained to the desk in the Operations center?
Of course one could buy it for about $200 or so which was, adjusting for inflation, about $925 now.
That was the only source for learning it. And it was not written for learning.
Or slightly later...When I learned C++ there were only two books originally available. Stroustrup's book and then the other wasn't even for C++ but rather for Objective C. The Ellis book came out about then also but those were the only books at all.
Might note also that I worked in a book store then, so I did in fact have resources that the vast majority of people did not.
Yet now when I search for "C++ Programming" in Amazon I see pages of results.
So no I don't think that the documentation now is worse than it was then.
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Back before the internet, I had more RAM in my brain, and memorized many things I don't bother to keep in RAM today. 
And there were many less constructs to have to keep in memory, unless you were doing assembly language. There were a lot less instructions for that as well, but I'm not good about remembering cryptic stuff.
As others pointed out, we also had those marvelous things called reference books!
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Like you, I used a lot of manuals...
That being said, from everything I have seen during my long career and my current involvement with my profession, I am coming to the conclusion that the Internet has made most things worse for all of us; especially how management treats us professionals and the way most companies now treat their customers. Combine this with all the criminality that is now ever present on the Internet and we have a "perfect storm" of dysfunction which is increasingly getting worse...
Steve Naidamast
Sr. Software Engineer
Black Falcon Software, Inc.
blackfalconsoftware@outlook.com
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Steve Naidamast wrote: how management treats us professionals and the way most companies now treat their customers.
Hmmm....
IBM was considered the gold standard. If you worked for them then anyone else would hire you.
For IBM
1. You had to wear a suit. There was no such thing as business casual at that company. And was not for a long time.
2. They used what is basically an apprentice system for programmers.
3. Any programmer hired started at the first level by typing the code created by others into card decks. I believe you did that for about 2 years before you could move up.
4. IBM was sued and lost due to the way they treated their contractors. That lawsuit established much of what is considered standard for how contractors are treated now. Not just in programming but across all industries.
For companies buying computers IBM was consider the gold standard also. Anything else except IBM was considered not as good regardless of how it worked. The IBM PC was considered a throw away by the company itself. IBM invested in it solely because they considered it a toy but their customers were demanding that as an option. That by itself was both the biggest blunder by the company (because they did not take it seriously) and probably realistically allowed the computer revolution that exists now or at least it would have slowed it down. The blunder was in not restricting the license to MS-DOS.
Steve Naidamast wrote: Combine this with all the criminality that is now ever present
Crime has nothing to do with what you are stating. It always exists and always will. Prime example of a scam that lack of computers allowed (and lack of communication networks) was depicted in the movie "Catch Me If You Can"
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Books! I've still got the first microcomputer/programming book I bought in 1978 (when I built my first computer). It's "the Z-80 microcomputer handbook" by William Barden Jr. It's where I learned the z80 architecture and how to program the computer I'd built. Had no real OS, just a simple monitor program called Zapple. It allowed dumping memory, peeking and poking memory, execute at a specified address and setting a breakpoint. There was no assembler so I was programming via the opcodes. Fun times.
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Well, in those days (when the Dead Sea was on the Critical List) "Google" was running to the library and hopefully they had the books that answered your question. You would ask the Librarian or if you knew how to read the Dewey Decimal System and the card index, you could find the answers yourself.
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IBM operating system source code on microfiche. The holy grail (at the time).
"Before entering on an understanding, I have meditated for a long time, and have foreseen what might happen. It is not genius which reveals to me suddenly, secretly, what I have to say or to do in a circumstance unexpected by other people; it is reflection, it is meditation." - Napoleon I
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Ditch Front Page and just use the browser debugger with a workspace.
Edit the DOM and hot replace JavaScript.
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