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On 15th May 1994 I got on a plane to Budapest. It was my first trip there. It was for work and there was a fair amount of alcohol consumed. Scrap that, there was a lot of alcohol consumed.
But we did work.
I went out with a delivery of the latest version of our software. The client, K&H, are still going but long ago switched off the software; actually probably only about 10 years since they migrated from the last version I put in.
The software was a retail banking system and I worked on the client side. The main backend was an IBM 3290 CICS system. I worked on the front office stuff which was all on the new fangled Windows platform.
To be precise, the front end bloatware ran on Windows 3.11 Workgroups with NT servers for the messaging. Each of the three messaging components needed it's own box as it ran at ~100% CPU irrespective of the workload; I sh*t yee not.
Everything was developed in VB3 and each and every form had a different style. The menus where all hard coded and yet the actually menu bars where created dynamically; fun stuff. Nobody trusted the inbuilt Date data type, so we had strings and lots of nasty code. Even one doofus-numbnut-brain-twok decided that a week was not seven days but 365/52 days as it made maturity of weekly interest fall on the correct anniversary. Somewhere in the pits of hell, I have some floppies with copies of the code base from that era; I will never look at them. Never!
Oh there was an Oracle DB there somewhere, but it did very little as everything went to the mainframe. I think it was one of those 'have to have an RDBMS for it to be serious.
But really, I never imagined that day that within a few year Budapest would be my real home and that I'd end up married to one of the locals.
Native. I went there.
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Nostalgia-Nagy
Veni, vidi, vici.
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You mean.. Nostalnagy 
I will never again mention that Dalek Dave was the poster of the One Millionth Lounge Post, nor that it was complete drivel.
How to ask a question
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Shirley it's Nagystalgia 
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I will never again mention that Dalek Dave was the poster of the One Millionth Lounge Post, nor that it was complete drivel.
How to ask a question
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Cheers. Can you remember what you were doing 20 years ago?
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Yes, driving a blue 'Tipo' with a general and a colonel on board.
Veni, vidi, vici.
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Relaxing, after the most intense 6 months of development in my life, culminating with a ten consecutive days on a trade show stand in Dusseldorf for the product launch. Product went on to be the best seller the company had ever seen, and changed a £2M pa turnover company to a £5.6M pa company in the first year after we started selling it the following October. And it kept climbing from there, to peak at £12M pa and settle at around £10M.
I really, really, should have demanded a commision on each sale... 
Those who fail to learn history are doomed to repeat it. --- George Santayana (December 16, 1863 – September 26, 1952)
Those who fail to clear history are doomed to explain it. --- OriginalGriff (February 24, 1959 – ∞)
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Yep. I was in a shop whose flagship product was built on VB5 and C++. Ah, those innocent days of youth... I was also just beginning to poke my nose into .NET and Java. Weird, I know, but I had just been dropped into a project which had a Java client pulling data from a .NET web service. Thems were fun days! 
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Mmm. VB5 was three years later and .NET didn't launch until 2002.
As for Web Services in 1994, me thinks you drank too much KoolAid
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Yeah, I just realized the big mistake I made...I was thinking about 10 years ago! OMG!  How lame is that?
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I would have been at primary school ... in my last term there though.
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Quote: I will never look at them. Never!
You may be amused to learn that 15 years ago I walked away from a lot of VB3 code (also financial services) and thought I would never look back.
I recently "went back" on a short term contract. My mission? To convert that VB3 code (yep - still in production at that time) for use on Windows 7 ... to VB6 no less!
Clearly I was some high-end criminal in a previous life and have now paid my dues!!
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15 years ago we'd moved to VB5 or 6, can't remember exactly, but a lot of the code base was the same.
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I'm still waiting for some VB6 to come back and bite me from a few years ago.
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glennPattonWork wrote: [...] from a few years days ago.
ftfy!
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No-no-no that last abortion was in .NET, the latest version. VB6 was a done many moons ago!
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Several years ago when I briefly reentered the software field I reapplied at a company I used to work for where I had written a C++ application that handled their call center...major company, 350 agents, 5K calls/day and found that they were still using it. That was quite a thrill to learn that, but didn't get the job!
Along with Antimatter and Dark Matter they've discovered the existence of Doesn't Matter which appears to have no effect on the universe whatsoever!
Rich Tennant 5th Wave
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Mike Hankey wrote: found that they were still using it. That was quite a thrill to learn that, but didn't get the job!
That's a bit of of slap in the face  Think how much profit they have made in total using your software.
.-.
|o,o|
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||/_/_\_\ /[] _ _\
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\._. |\_/|"` |_| ==== |_|
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When I left I was going through a very nasty divorce and I just walked out one day and never went back.
Along with Antimatter and Dark Matter they've discovered the existence of Doesn't Matter which appears to have no effect on the universe whatsoever!
Rich Tennant 5th Wave
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Mike Hankey wrote: I had written a C++ application
This explain that:
Mike Hankey wrote: didn't get the job
I'm not questioning your powers of observation; I'm merely remarking upon the paradox of asking a masked man who he is. (V)
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Nagy Vilmos wrote: I'd end up married to one of the locals.
It is really fun to go local'
(Imagine that sentence spoken in a crude Mexican drug lord's voice) 
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Nagy Vilmos wrote: I never imagined that day that within a few year Budapest would be my real home and that I'd end up married to one of the locals.
I thought I saw her at the late night restaurant.
She would have sent blue shivers down the wall.
But she didn't grace our table.
In fact, she wasn't there at all.
Yes, and her legs went on forever.
Like staring up at infinity.
Her heart was spinning to the west-lands
and she didn't care to be
that night in Budapest.
Hot night in Budapest.
Lyrics from Jethro Tull's Budapest[^].
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Always like Jethro Tull but had never heard this song. Thanks
[edit]
Found this[^]
[/edit]
Along with Antimatter and Dark Matter they've discovered the existence of Doesn't Matter which appears to have no effect on the universe whatsoever!
Rich Tennant 5th Wave
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