A year and a half ago I put together a list of personal comments found\nwithin the R18 Pro\/E compiled code. Pro\/E seems to be the only major\nsoftware application in the world that includes these comments in the\ncode distributed to customers, apparently other vendors usually remove\nthem.\n<\/p>\n\n\n\n
So, seems time to check on R20 and see what’s there. All the indented\nlines below are exact text from the R20 compiled code, extracted with\nthe Unix ‘strings’ command. I’m also attaching the R18 comments, for\nanyone who didn’t read them at the time.\n<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Good to see all the familiar names are still there on R20: Lev, Piotr,\nAnton, Jatin, Konstantin, and Mike. You might think from this list that\nPTC programmers must be at least 80% Russian, but probably not, seems\nthe Russians are just more polite than other nationalities, they’re\nalways calling each other by name: “Please tell Piotr”, “Please tell\nKonstantin”, and so forth.\n<\/p>\n\n\n\n
On R20 there is a new person, Maxime:\n<\/p>\n\n\n\n
In a preliminary message I said Maxime was a woman, but since then I’ve\nbeen corrected, no, he’s a man. Maxime is just an English version of a\nRussian male name, Maksim.\n<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Although a lot of companies are nervous about publishing the names of\ntechnical people, worrying about headhunters, apparently not so PTC.\nWhy, you can even get the internal phone extension of a programmer:\n<\/p>\n\n\n\n
There’s a regular flow of polite requests:\n<\/p>\n\n\n\n
But sometimes politeness gets strained, perhaps even among the Russians:\n<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Why bother about all this stuff? Well, take this message in the R20\ncode:\n<\/p>\n\n\n\n
If it was your Pro\/E session which was crashing, wouldn’t you like to\nknow? And the cheerful farewell message might just improve your mood.\n<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Now the experienced programmer has tricks to avoid a crash:\n<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Although it’s not quite clear that this is an total solution for the end\nuser, who may find that his data has suddenly become complete nonsense.\n<\/p>\n\n\n\n
And there are other ways to avoid problems, even if you have to regress\nand be bad:\n<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Or how about this, as a message before you crash:\n<\/p>\n\n\n\n
That might at least leave you time to fasten your seatbelt.\n<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Here’s another warning message which the end user might find informative:\n<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Would be good to know that, so when your input has no visible effect\non what is happening on the screen at least you know why, and you know\nit’s not you who is going crazy.\n<\/p>\n\n\n\n
At times there is frank bafflement:\n<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Or small triumphs:\n<\/p>\n\n\n\n
We’re all human, you or I might forget to close the door, a programmer\nhas similar problems:\n<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Some of the programming terms have very descriptive names:\n<\/p>\n\n\n\n
In programming as in life, crap happens:\n<\/p>\n\n\n\n
And even worse:\n<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Sounds like a sewer leak, perhaps, seems as if the flow line broke somewhere.\n<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Confusion may abound:\n<\/p>\n\n\n\n
But still there’s a strong determination to succeed, keep on trying:\n<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Things get crazy at times, just like in any other job:\n<\/p>\n\n\n\n
And you might just have to depend on sheer luck:\n<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Not clear here, whether the ‘Good luck’ message is for some fellow\nprogrammer, or for the end user. If it’s for the end user, would be\nnice to see it printed out on the screen too.\n<\/p>\n\n\n\n
These programmers can be pretty hard on each other at times, they can\nbe quite critical of each other’s work:\n<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Although there are some more polite comments:\n<\/p>\n\n\n\n
It can be difficult to follow the train of thought:\n<\/p>\n\n\n\n
And things go bad too:\n<\/p>\n\n\n\n
And bad can even be amazing:\n<\/p>\n\n\n\n
It’s true, sometimes you might not want to know just exactly everything\nthat can go wrong with the software you are using:\n<\/p>\n\n\n\n
And corruption can get into the computer itself too:\n<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Although sometimes a professional programmer can still keep that\npositive upbeat attitude:\n<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Why does everything get corrupted like this? Here’s one attempt to\nexplain:\n<\/p>\n\n\n\n
That sounds like a typical programmer, just blaming it all on the poor\nuser.\n<\/p>\n\n\n\n
You can hear a note of apology in some remarks:\n<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Something can still be a problem on R20, just as on R18:\n<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Although sometimes with a literary allusion:\n<\/p>\n\n\n\n
And the long arm of the law can affect programming too:\n<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Worth concluding with the last two lines from my R18 report, still there\nin the R20 code. A question from one programmer to another:\n<\/p>\n\n\n\n
And the affirmative answer:\n<\/p>\n\n\n\n
A year and a half ago I put together a list of personal comments found within the R18 Pro\/E compiled code. Pro\/E seems to be the only major software application in the world that includes these comments in the code distributed to customers, apparently other vendors usually remove them. So, seems time to check on … Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"parent":46,"menu_order":2,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-82","page","type-page","status-publish"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/creosite.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/82","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/creosite.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/creosite.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/creosite.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/creosite.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=82"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/creosite.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/82\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":98,"href":"https:\/\/creosite.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/82\/revisions\/98"}],"up":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/creosite.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/46"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/creosite.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=82"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}