As I read and learn more about .NET programming it's becoming painfully obvious that the work I'm doing is not mainstream. The vast majority of tutorials, articles, and forum postings out there seem to be based on database activities. And that may not be the proper way to describe it because what I find is lots of information on how to structure data, mouse clicks and user forms, or worse, and I still can't figure this out...chat rooms. What is this obsession programmers have with chat programs? There are at least a few dozen commercially available chat programs ranging from free to only a few bucks in price but time after time my searches lead me to someone trying to author or tutorialize a new chat program writing about it as though it's the next best thing since sliced bread.
I wrote software years ago when BASIC was still basic and compilers were rare but available. I got away from that type of work for a while but always kept my hand in it to stay sharp and as a hobby. About a year ago while looking for work, I approached a company that was wanting to do automation with Excel and other software to interface with AutoCAD and custom machine software to do CNC machining etc... This was exactly the kind of opportunity I was looking for and while it doesn't pay as well as some of my previous managerial positions when the construction market was booming, it has gotten me through what are some extremely tough economic times.
I am interested in finding and speaking with others who are doing this kind of automation programming. That is programs written that don't have a damn thing to do with user interfaces. These programs are short and sweet and the usually just read information from text files, rapidly process it, perform structural calculations and then feed this information to another app or machine in the form of a text file. All the fluff and window dressing is not, how you say stripped out of it, because it was never designed to have fluff and window dressing in the first place. I welcome comments and conversations with others who may be doing similar types of programming.
I wrote software years ago when BASIC was still basic and compilers were rare but available. I got away from that type of work for a while but always kept my hand in it to stay sharp and as a hobby. About a year ago while looking for work, I approached a company that was wanting to do automation with Excel and other software to interface with AutoCAD and custom machine software to do CNC machining etc... This was exactly the kind of opportunity I was looking for and while it doesn't pay as well as some of my previous managerial positions when the construction market was booming, it has gotten me through what are some extremely tough economic times.
I am interested in finding and speaking with others who are doing this kind of automation programming. That is programs written that don't have a damn thing to do with user interfaces. These programs are short and sweet and the usually just read information from text files, rapidly process it, perform structural calculations and then feed this information to another app or machine in the form of a text file. All the fluff and window dressing is not, how you say stripped out of it, because it was never designed to have fluff and window dressing in the first place. I welcome comments and conversations with others who may be doing similar types of programming.