13 replies to this topic

[TalentedFool]

Nice one for the Thursday afternoon

I've been asked by one of my users - what does PRX stand for? I was baffled. Have never been asked that or wondered what it actually stands for - just always known it as a Pro-IV export file.

Anybody got any good ideas? Or is "Pro-IV export" the answer

Lee

[andykay]

According the the Acronym Dictionary "PRX" can stand for 2 things, of which only 1 would be applicable towards ProIV.

1. Private Reed Exchange
2. Public Radio Exchange


AK

Edited by andykay, 15 February 2007 - 06:54 PM.

[Chris Pepper]

I have a feeling that "PRoiv eXport" is the answer. Why does everyone expect acronyms these days?

Mind you, the best story on this forum was probably on the derivation of the DCTF filename. (Search for the memories of Curtis Goodrich to find the answer on that one).

Edited by Chris Pepper, 15 February 2007 - 08:02 PM.

[andykay]

I have a feeling that PRoiv eXport; is the answer. Why does everyone expect acronyms these days?

Chris,

With the age of ProIV...who's to say that all other programs didn't use the ProIV export extension, and not knowing that it was specific to PRoiv eXport came up with their own meaning, to encorporated anything that had to do with transporting functionality from one platform to another.

People don't expect acronyms today...it's a fact of life in the computer trade since ".proivexport" has never been a valid file extension. After all, according to you, isn't PRX an acronym of PRoiv eXport?


AK

Edited by Rob Donovan, 15 February 2007 - 10:44 PM.

[Shaun Rudland]

Why does everyone expect acronyms these days?

That's right Chris. In the old days, when we started, programmers were lucky to have files, let along give them fancy acronyms. We had to get up 2 hours before we went to bed, and collect punchcards for our Computer Department Manager who used to beat us with a disk pack. Then we were forced to sit for up to 34 hours a day, coding on M8000s and 30MB Olivetti PCs, with back-ups on tape reels and 5 1/4 inch floppies. Internet ? email ? IT Professionals in Gucci suits ? These young'uns don't know how easy they have it.

[Chris Pepper]

As someone who wrote their first program back in 1970 (I was a school then though!) which was saved on to punched paper tape, I don't think you're going back far enough.

What about "knitted" core memory... they just have little chips now?

These days they they have it easy with their Unicode and fancy fonts... back then we only had one case: UPPER CASE!

...and when I started at ICL we only had six bits in a character!

Ooh and big removable disk packs with lots of platters that you had to unscrew from the drives... and I'll never forget the excitement of seeing my first self-loading tape drive (and now people think the iPhone is techno-porn)...

Oh dear, I've got all excited, I'll have to have a nice cup of tea and a lie down

[deepghosh]

PRX is history. VPX is in.

[Rob Donovan]

PRX is definatly not history for us, we wouldnt go near a VPX

Rob.

[Glenn Meyers]

Why does everyone expect acronyms these days?

That's right Chris. In the old days, when we started, programmers were lucky to have files, let along give them fancy acronyms. We had to get up 2 hours before we went to bed, and collect punchcards for our Computer Department Manager who used to beat us with a disk pack. Then we were forced to sit for up to 34 hours a day, coding on M8000s and 30MB Olivetti PCs, with back-ups on tape reels and 5 1/4 inch floppies. Internet ? email ? IT Professionals in Gucci suits ? These young'uns don't know how easy they have it.

Ya, and we had to PAY for the privledge too!

[deepghosh]

With all due respect to old day IT superstars (Yes I am just 44, so I belong halfway there), IT has moved a long way. Gone are green screen (well almost) and we welcome web services (Yes PROIV does that too!).
Whats wrong in IT professional in Gucci suits. (Actually we all should feel good about it that they are getting some recognition.) Yes I have programmed assembler and punch cards, and I feel very good that I dont have to do it anymore and now I can do C# and Java (and maybe PROIV?).
It will be good if IT professionals using these new tools finish their coding by 5 (or whatever flex time schedules they have) and go home and have a life and not work like zombies.
Finally PROIV should move too and you guys deserve that.

[Chris Pepper]

I'm all for moving with the times, my manager has just offered me the "carrot" of a Java course later in the year! One thing that I find interesting doing a lots of work with source code control is that we have the same issues on our ProIV, Java and VB code, so it doesn't look like things have moved on much.

No VPX here either! Source code gets stored in text files in our repository and loaded back in to ProIV using my routines. That way I can cross reference to the exact versions of dependencies (Global Logics and File Definitions) used in that particular version of code. PRX is fine for genned code, though we have wrappers around it so you can revert back to the original version, rather the one you just rolled in.

Oh, and no Gucci suits here. I'm working from home & just realised it's nearly lunch time - so I should go and get some clothes on as I'm sitting here in my dressing gown!

[Mike Nicholson]

Oh, and no Gucci suits here. I'm working from home & just realised it's nearly lunch time - so I should go and get some clothes on as I'm sitting here in my dressing gown!

Hehe, I think part of my working from home contract was dependant on me promising to be dressed when having phone meetings ...

[Chris Pepper]

Hehe, I think part of my working from home contract was dependant on me promising to be dressed when having phone meetings ...

...and how can they tell how you are dressed? Do they call around unnannounced? ... or do you have a webcam?

btw have you seen the classic Dilbert where he is working at home, sitting unshaven in his dressing gown holding up a little Dilbert glove puppet in front of the webcam?

(I've beaten the unshaven thing by growing a beard - as they discovered when I turned up in the main office for the first time in about 4 months!)

[Mike Nicholson]

Hehe, I think part of my working from home contract was dependant on me promising to be dressed when having phone meetings ...

...and how can they tell how you are dressed? Do they call around unnannounced? ... or do you have a webcam?

btw have you seen the classic Dilbert where he is working at home, sitting unshaven in his dressing gown holding up a little Dilbert glove puppet in front of the webcam?

(I've beaten the unshaven thing by growing a beard - as they discovered when I turned up in the main office for the first time in about 4 months!)

Wasn't being entirely serious I like the glove puppet idea though ... !