compression

[Marcel Kunath]

The page has been removed but there is a mirror:

http://www.billjonas.com/pub/compression.html

>
> I need a break from banging my head against a wall trying to get
> software to compile, so I'll respond to this... =)
>
> Quoted from Marcel Kunath on Tue, Apr 24, 2001 at 10:46:44AM -0400:
> > I know you all read /. but I post it anyways:
> >
> > http://www.geocities.com/patchnpuki/other/compression.htm
>
> Without following the URL, I'm guessing that's the big thing
> about the guy trying to compress the file and win $5000...
>

< CUT >

> > I feel the entire time spent at MSU I learned about Linux, networking,
> > TCP/IP and so forth and just did MSU classes on the side because I
> > wasn't really interested as I saw no practical need for it. I learned to wor
k
> > in a highly burocractic business/info tech environment (MSU-AIS) where CSE
> > knowledge wasn't really needed either because it is focused on mainframe and

> > web development excluding any C or Java use.
>
> OK, so basic HTML doesn't really need much CSE, but just about
> anything else web-related does: ASP, PHP, CF, JAVA, etc. .  Plus
> there's a lot of little things that it really helps to know, stuff
> you don't even think about but that's in the back of your mind
> anyways.
>

Well I do ASP and SQL and there is some application but its not as heavy as if
you would write C or Java. I work on systems like Stuinfo and the Courses
system and honestly we spend more time discussing if we can give this or that
info out on the web(90%) (privacy etc.) than write the webpages(10%).

There is about 1000 pages of documentation for the mainframe system and it was
in Word Perfect 5.1 After somebody brought up Docbook here(probably you) I
figured it would
be useful to convert the documentation to SGML instead of keeping to chase the
proprietory office suites year after year. So I went ahead did some test
documents, installed Emacs on NT, installed psgml mode to work on Emacs. I was
really excited about this but in the end it stalled because nobody wants to
port it to Docbook besides me but use office suites. So on the downside I got
shut out by higher up to convert the documentation to SGML but on the upside it
gave me energy to learn more about Emacs and psgml and how .emacs works. I
guess I will only use vi 99% of my time now. =)

This specific example shows how hard it is to be accepted. I don't find joy in
writing C program so I don't fit in with the programmer/computer scientist
crowd. But I also don't fit in with the pure business application crowd. It's
been 3 years here but only one person picked up Linux in my dept of 120 people.
The business world is still Microsoft oriented even though there are great
Unix tools out there. People just have to learn them. There is too much dead
wood out there and its really demotivating for a young person.

But then there is moments like the one 30 min ago. A client came in and stopped
by my office and gave me a thumbs up and said "I totally approve of this. And I
got Solaris 8 running at home myself the other day." (him pointing at my Linux
penguin and my Linux license plate) ........made me smile........


mk