more EE Times nonsense
in [Design]
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From: John Larkin on 16 Apr 2010 12:53 On Fri, 16 Apr 2010 09:36:51 -0700, "Joel Koltner" <zapwireDASHgroups(a)yahoo.com> wrote: >"John Larkin" <jjlarkin(a)highNOTlandTHIStechnologyPART.com> wrote in message >news:kh2hs5t9706jngsup98n4v6bq1doiokm88(a)4ax.com... >> That would be an interesting interview. > >Indeed... > >I'm guessing you're the oldest person at Highland, John? How much younger is >the next-youngest employee? One of my test guys is about my age, I'm not sure in which direction. I don't think either of us would ever retire voluntarily. > >(I'm getting at the idea here that people over 40? 50? 60? perhaps aren't >hired based on their becoming rather "gelled" in their mindsets about how to >design things, even if they do have a history of successful products, as Bill >claims to and Jim certainly does, yet clearly you have a different approach to >design than either of them... but of course also design highly-successful >widgets... :-) ) Frankly, I'd be reluctant to hire an engineer as old as myself. I can clearly see that I have less energy than I used to have, and am getting reluctant to learn new things like C++ and Perl and VHDL (which, you have to admit, are abominations.) And I want prople who will grow and be around for a while and eventually own the company. Some of my visual-spatial skills aren't what they used to be, like the ability to visualize 3D structures rotated in space. Fortunately, we now have things like SolidWorks and Spice and email archives to take over some of the heavy lifting and remembering. I'm increasingly architecting (and selling) products and getting help on implementation. That makes sense, actually: the world has become far too complex for a single person to be good at everything. We just yesterday brainstormed an LVDT/synchro/resolver simulator that's mostly digital, with several people arguing and inventing at the same time, with the resulting whiteboard photos going to potential customers for reaction. That's very satisfying. John
From: John Fields on 16 Apr 2010 13:02 On Fri, 16 Apr 2010 08:52:24 -0700 (PDT), Bill Sloman <bill.sloman(a)ieee.org> wrote: >On Apr 15, 5:32�pm, John Larkin ><jjlar...(a)highNOTlandTHIStechnologyPART.com> wrote: >> Gosh, you raise tedium almost into a new art form. Gotta admire skill >> like that. > >High praise from a true master of the art, who rarely deviates from >telling us how implausibly brilliant Highland Electronics is (or >Highland electronics are). --- Too bad there isn't a Slowman Electronics to which an appropriate parallel could be drawn. JF
From: Joel Koltner on 16 Apr 2010 14:05 "John Larkin" <jjlarkin(a)highNOTlandTHIStechnologyPART.com> wrote in message news:0l4hs553o19p5vp3c2ver6mtmkfpqt0aum(a)4ax.com... > Frankly, I'd be reluctant to hire an engineer as old as myself. I can > clearly see that I have less energy than I used to have, and am > getting reluctant to learn new things like C++ and Perl and VHDL > (which, you have to admit, are abominations.) VHDL especially... talk about overly-wordy... While it's not cheap, if you can spare the time going to the week-long classes to learn a new programming/hardware design language is quite effective, at least for me -- it's faster than sitting down and reading a book (particularly since a good instructor is going to omit the less-important details, whereas with a book detecting which details are less important and skipping them yourself can sometimes be a bit of a catch-22), and of course you get to ask questions and expect a solid response, which a book can't do (and a newsgroup takes longer and gets sidetracked). I've been reading up a bit on wxPython in my spare time lately (it's a GUI-ing kit for the Python language -- a set of bindings for wxWidgets, which is C++-based cross-platform GUI toolkit that I used in one piece of software for work here). I'm thinking of re-writing your PowerBASIC 11802 screen capture routine in it, just as an exercise... should be fun, if I do it! > And I want prople who > will grow and be around for a while and eventually own the company. Ah, not going to hire those guys who pre-Internet-bubble-bust were "strategically" finding a new job every 12-24 months just to pump up their salaries, eh? :-) > I'm increasingly architecting (and selling) products and getting help > on implementation. That makes sense, actually: the world has become > far too complex for a single person to be good at everything. Absolutely, that makes lots of sense. ---Joel
From: John Larkin on 16 Apr 2010 15:00 On Fri, 16 Apr 2010 11:05:14 -0700, "Joel Koltner" <zapwireDASHgroups(a)yahoo.com> wrote: >"John Larkin" <jjlarkin(a)highNOTlandTHIStechnologyPART.com> wrote in message >news:0l4hs553o19p5vp3c2ver6mtmkfpqt0aum(a)4ax.com... >> Frankly, I'd be reluctant to hire an engineer as old as myself. I can >> clearly see that I have less energy than I used to have, and am >> getting reluctant to learn new things like C++ and Perl and VHDL >> (which, you have to admit, are abominations.) > >VHDL especially... talk about overly-wordy... There's apparently no logic as to where you put semicolons. Ironic in a logic design language. > >While it's not cheap, if you can spare the time going to the week-long classes >to learn a new programming/hardware design language is quite effective, at >least for me -- it's faster than sitting down and reading a book (particularly >since a good instructor is going to omit the less-important details, whereas >with a book detecting which details are less important and skipping them >yourself can sometimes be a bit of a catch-22), and of course you get to ask >questions and expect a solid response, which a book can't do (and a newsgroup >takes longer and gets sidetracked). My best FPGA guy gave us a seminar on VHDL. One of my test techs really took to it, so I think she's on track to move up to engineering. She's going to do a simple VME module FPGA soon for starters. Then I'll have *two* people who can be my FPGA compilers. I can scribble a schematic/block disgram on a whiteboard, and they can go make it work. Just another level of design abstraction. > >I've been reading up a bit on wxPython in my spare time lately (it's a GUI-ing >kit for the Python language -- a set of bindings for wxWidgets, which is >C++-based cross-platform GUI toolkit that I used in one piece of software for >work here). I'm thinking of re-writing your PowerBASIC 11802 screen capture >routine in it, just as an exercise... should be fun, if I do it! Do the data transfers in binary, please. I did ASCII because it was easier, but it's slow. John
From: krw on 16 Apr 2010 19:00
On Fri, 16 Apr 2010 09:36:51 -0700, "Joel Koltner" <zapwireDASHgroups(a)yahoo.com> wrote: >"John Larkin" <jjlarkin(a)highNOTlandTHIStechnologyPART.com> wrote in message >news:kh2hs5t9706jngsup98n4v6bq1doiokm88(a)4ax.com... >> That would be an interesting interview. > >Indeed... > >I'm guessing you're the oldest person at Highland, John? How much younger is >the next-youngest employee? > >(I'm getting at the idea here that people over 40? 50? 60? perhaps aren't >hired based on their becoming rather "gelled" in their mindsets about how to >design things, even if they do have a history of successful products, as Bill >claims to and Jim certainly does, yet clearly you have a different approach to >design than either of them... but of course also design highly-successful >widgets... :-) ) I had no problems finding work after >30 years working for one company and mid-fiftys. There were a few who tripped up (managers often aren't very bright and none can act) and made it obvious that they were (illegally) discriminating, but there were more than enough who wanted design engineers to ignore the morons. If that's how they run their business I wasn't interested anyhow. |