[Glastonbury] Python [WAS: Another company recognizes Liux is HERE!]

[Sean Miller]

Tim Hall wrote:

>Good point. Actually I do think about such things. That's why I tend to use 
>Python for the specific problems that I have to solve, but you're absolutely 
>right that I wouldn't actually use it for everything. Thanks for making that 
>point though, I've not had any formal grounding in programming and I'm 
>largely stirring up the waters to elicit useful information of this kind.
>
I guess programming backgrounds are probably something that we should go 
over in the group, in order to advertise our various areas of 
"expertise" (or similar) in case they are of use to the group... :-)

I started in IT in 1988, at the time using VMS and a fairly early 
version of Oracle (forms 2, version 4 or 5 of the RDBMS etc. etc.)..... 
in the early nineties migrated from VMS to Sun Solaris 2.3 
(System5Release4 compliant UNIX) and achieved the first UK 
implementation of Oracle 7 with the team at Foster Yeoman in Frome. 
During this process became proficient in Solaris system administration, 
Korn shell programming and various other exciting things (hehe!)

Now working in Oracle 9i with forms 6i.... as things grow one tends to 
specialise, and my specialist area of Oracle is server-side rather than 
client side (ie. PL/SQL packages/procedures etc.)... recently have been 
involved in the Allianz Cornhill corporate e-AAG (e-applications 
architecture group) and through this have spent time learning Java, 
evaluating Micro$oft .net etc. etc. -- I have also had to write 'c' code 
and implement a car registration validation system using SNA/CPIC 
[proprietary IBM networking stuff] which was a challenge :-)

At home have started using Linux (was almost 100% Linux before I got the 
laptop which has temporarily drawn me back to XP due to problems with 
linmodems etc.) though this is almost certain to increase with the 
advent of Broadband... the intention is to buy a router, rather than a 
modem, so that I can plug in the various operating systems etc. etc. 
without worrying about software/drivers etc.

Oh, and I also continue to seek to improve my knowledge of web 
programming -- especially in the areas of php, css, javascript, dhtml  
and more recently jsp, servlets etc. etc.

So that's me... hows about everybody else?

Sean