Adjust or Go Extinct: 50 Years of Conventional Wisdom and Eye-raising Anecdotes from Programming Veterans
Today programming is such a vital and entrenched field that it's hard to imagine a time when companies like IBM sent its programmers packing, but it happened—and plenty more stories like it. A programming veteran takes a walk down memory lane, and DevX authors share their veteran-era anecdotes as well in this special report.
by Glen Kunene, Senior Editor
March 22, 2005
hen Gerald Weinberg began working in the information technology industry, he wasn't hired as a software developer or a programmer—not because he wasn't qualified for these positions, but because they didn't exist yet. His first job title was "Computer" in the physics department of his college 50 years ago, an age when Weinberg explained, "the title software developer did not exist; the word software did not exist."
When he entered the workforce in 1956, IBM bestowed its new employee the more formal-sounding title of applied science representative. In the decade to follow, Weinberg witnessed the creations of the disk drive, the operating system, and the profession that today is known as programmer. During his keynote address titled Fifty Years of Software Development—Lessons from the Ancients at the SD West 2005 conference last week in Santa Clara, Calif., he recounted all the technology transitions he endured in those years. The experience taught him a valuable lesson that he stressed to the packed auditorium: "If you don't keep up, you're gone."
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