Packetfury.net

Life is full of surprises. My last post told the sad story of someone being ashamed of sending off some code in a very poor state, well, they called back and asked to see me. Off I went, a bit surprised, and also glad to see these people (I've been looking on their website for a while, and I really liked some of the words they used, especially "mobility").

 The interview itself lasted a long time, and was different to the interviews I've had up until now. The first part was a quick explanation of my code; why did I use C, why did I use the GTK toolkit, etc etc. It gave me a chance to explain what I think a mobile application is, what I would have changed and especially, what I would have added (error detection!!).

Also, important bit of information for anyone jobhunting - watch out what you put on your blog. These guys read my blog, and not only that, they have a perfect understanding of English. It's always a little frightening when the person you are talking to starts talking about comments you made on your old job, or gives references to things you have said or done. It's a good thing I didn't say anything bad then! In theory I could always just hide stuff of filter things, but my honest side of me forbids it. Anyway, hello :)

Back to the job hunt, their office is full of rather nice Mac material. They have already made an apparently successful iPhone application, and they do some embedded systems programming, mainly things to do with modems and network communications.  Their philosophy is 'fun', and their mode is 'pro'. They make me think alot about the way I used to be, or at least wanted to be - Old school.

I had a rather long conversation about Old School once or twice, and especially once for Packard Bell NEC. I defined myself as an old school programmer, and despised the new generation. My argument was Internet. Internet has been a major development for mankind, it is an excellent way of spreading information, keeping in touch and to develop most aspect of our civilization. It has also been one of the worst inventions possible for developers. Yes, we have a way of keeping contact with others, spreading our knowledge and getting help from others. It has also created an entire generation of developers who thing that Internet is a great way of patching.

I firmly believe that we have lost a lot of what we had. The best days for me were the days of the Amiga, Atari and other such fun things. Yes, even Mac! Then along came the trusty PC, with DOS and Windows, and here we are in computer hell. When I was playing with the Amiga, I once bought a game that didn't work. I called the manufacturer, their REAL hot-line, and they told me that they would send out some replacement disks. Disks, physical media, sent through the real post, snail-mail style. The end story was that they didn't anticipate the fact that a few Amiga users used a specific chip-set, and that 80% of Amigas sold were never modified, and apart from a RAM expansion, were never really updated. Amigas were 7.1MHz, 512k machines that just worked. Programmers at the time were given the "one shot"market. Make the application, test it to death and be sure about what you do, because when you release it, there are no patches, there are no updates or upgrades. It has to work, full stop. Clients will not buy a game or program that doesn't work, or if they do, they will NEVER buy another one from you again. Today, programmers have got used to a world where it doesn't really matter, if there are bugs, well, just patch through Internet. Less time to market, and less hot-line calls, since the application can go onto internet itself and download anything it wants. I've seen game patches in the hundreds of megabytes, and emergency patches that are at least 20 megabytes. This is ridiculous. I was talking to a Major in the French Air Force about their research and development, and he gave a very sobering explanation about what "old school" is. It has to work. An anti-missile missile being launched to protect a regiment, or an avionics system attempting to recover an airplane won't go onto internet to see if there is an update. There is no fancy code, no easter eggs, no horrible flashing interface, the code is simple and robust. Make a mistake in the general public, and clients have to download patches. Make a mistake in true embedded systems, and in the worst case, people die. While Ripple Motion doesn't deal in missiles or avionics systems (not that I know of at least), they are perfectly conscious about the meaning of solid code, and they understand and embrace the philosophy that code has to be perfect, first time round. For that reason alone, they deserve to do great things and be awarded for it.

It looks like things are beginning to change again, old school is coming back. Old School does not mean immune to new technologies, it does not mean that things are ugly or outdated. It just works (c), and I'm glad to have met some people who think the same was as I do. The future is with sturdy iPhone applications? Sounds good to me. Anyone here think I'll be able to negociate an iPhone to work on? :)