[geeks] timesheet and invoicing software

[Mike Meredith]

On Sat, 25 Feb 2006 11:16:28 -0500, Charles Shannon Hendrix wrote:
> It's all just stupid accounting errors, or inflexible software, along
> with mindless droids that accept whatever the computer says.

In the dim and distant past when systems programmers bit off the heads
of users who dared to mention time-sharing, real programmers poured 
scorn on compilers (and didn't secretly use them), and PHBs hid quaking
in their offices, the IT world was divided somewhat evenly between
scientific computing and data processing. My mum(*) likes to claim that
only the really dumb people went into data processing.

*: Although she started as an operator in the DP world(**), she wound up
as a programmer in the scientific computing world. She once (in the
mid-1960's when floating point software was somewhat trickier than it is
today) had the pleasure of coldly telling an eminent professor of
statistics that her program wasn't in error ... his formulae was (he'd
given her the 'other' formulae for standard deviation). Due to this she
may be slightly prejudiced especially as it's a good way to wind up my
dad (who spent pretty much his whole career in the DP world).

**: Her first job was with a firm in Manchester where the team leader
had previously worked as an operator for the University in the early
1950s. She can retell some fascinating stories from the earliest days
of computing.

(apologies for being in 'wittering on' mode)