Re: The joy of FORTRAN

On Wed, 2 Oct 2024 11:14:44 +0100
The Natural Philosopher <tnp@invalid.invalid> wrote:

Its at that point in the sales process that you need an experienced
coder in with the salesman.

I still recall one job where the sales guy was regularly left
unsupervised with prospective clients. Word came down from management
one day that we'd just signed a new customer, and they wanted results
delivered "in an API."

Okay, we respond, which one would that be?

Eventually comes out that they have absolutely no idea what that even
means, it just sounds Very Offical And Technical. We end up delivering
Excel spreadsheets PGP-ed, and that only because CC info was included.*

* (Ohhh boy were we not PCI-compliant - but that was a *separate* tale
  of malfeasance, the guy we brought on for PCI compliance was one of
  the most dedicatedly useless grifters I've ever met in my life.
  Worked there for upwards of five years before he got laid off, and
  never made one iota of progress on it; the company *still* wasn't
  compliant when it was finally shuttered a few years after that.)