Cenozoic Period

In previous posts I described my historical computer background during the Paleozoic and Mesozoic periods. In this section, I present the Cenozoic period and bring you up to the current time.

Clipping Along

Shortly after leaving Genesis Business Systems, I went to work in the family construction business putting my accounting skills to work as the company comptroller. I also put my computer skills to work to automate the company. I started by putting in Accounting Software (early version of DAC Easy Accounting) and some job costing software. I also learned professional construction estimating and attended a school to learn the finer points. It was interesting work and I later put bids together for some large construction projects including schools and hotels.

While learning my estimating skills I realized that software would greatly improve the estimating process. I had been working with Ashton-Tate's dBase III while awaiting the release of dBase IV when I heard about a dBase III compiler called Clipper. I did some reading about Clipper on CompuServe (remember that!) and discovered that it might be worth the investment. I went to the nearest Egghead Software store (remember them also!) and purchased a copy of Nantucket Clipper '87.

Clipper took dBase III code and compiled it into a standalone executable that could be distributed royalty free. More importantly, the resulting programs executed much faster than their interpreted dBase III counterparts. I worked through some of the examples and quickly started to make progress. With the help of a Clipper guide written by Art Fuller, I was able to put together pull-down menus, selection grids and reports. The end result of my efforts was Ideal Estimator. This application was an assembly-based estimating system for drywall and plastering contractors that would handle construction assemblies, take-offs, material lists, estimated labor reports and bid quotes. I tried briefly to market this but found out early on that there was genuine apprehension when it came to computers in the construction industry, particularly with subcontractors.

Nevertheless, the family business continued to use the product up until a few years ago and it did build some very important job skills that would land me my next job.

Back to the Industry

After about 2 years in the family business I decided I needed re-enter the job market. I went to a placement specialist (aka head hunter) and got 2 interviews. The first was with a small startup company that was developing a product in dBase IV. After my first interview in years, I left totally convinced that I had the job. The interviewer was impressed with my background and with my software development experience. However, for some unknown reason, he went in a different direction and I was left looking for the next interview.

That interview came in the form of a Gas Utility Company in Boston. They were looking for a Clipper Programmer. During my first interview, I demonstrated Ideal Estimator and from that point on the company was sold. After 2 more interviews I was hired and started work for Algonquin Gas Transmission Company (AGT) in January of 1991.

AGT was a small fish in a big pond of Natural Gas Utility companies. They had been purchased twice in the previous 10 years. Nevertheless, they had an amazing amount of autonomy and the development environment there was rich. I started working on Purchasing Applications since Purchasing was a huge part of their business. I worked almost exclusively on Purchasing applications for the next 2 years and honed my skills in Clipper 87 and eventually Clipper 5.01 and Clipper 5.2. Through AGT, I attended 3 Clipper development conferences where I learned even more and was able to interact with Clipper Developers from all over the world. The Clipper community was dedicated to their toolset and to this day, they are proud to announce their heritage. It was during my Clipper days that I first met Paul Sheriff (PDSA, Inc.).

After 2 years at AGT, I started to see the writing on the wall. More and more control was gradually taken away from AGT from their parent company. The prospects of staying at AGT until retirement quickly eroded and I decided to make my break at the end of 1992. In January of 1993, I made the transition from employee to consultant. As is often the case, AGT hired me back as a consultant and paid me a much higher hourly rate. As fate would have it, the IT staff at AGT was quickly reduced until eventually, I was the only programmer working on AGT applications. This went on for about 8 years.

Public Housing Beckons

In 1993, my long-time friend (and brother-in-law) joined my consulting firm. We had the brilliant idea of developing a Real Estate application aimed at residential Real Estate firms. The application was designed as a combination of software and service where subscribing agencies would receive updated listings nightly and would then be able to present those to their clients each day. The software included a slide-show of the home's interior and exterior and the agency could print out a full-color report showing the specifications on the home as well as all of the images. It was fairly advanced for it's time (circa 1994) but we quickly found out that Real Estate agencies didn't like to work that way.

While the application seemed doomed, a friend of ours happened by our booth at a trade show. We gave him a quick demo and the wheels in his head started turning. He was an employee of a Housing Authority and it was his job to find software to manage their facilities. He was looking for a custom-built solution but his main requirement was that the software be easy to use. He brought an employee to our office to view the Real Estate application and within minutes the employee was at ease. He could use software like that.

We submitted a proposal to develop 3 modules for the Brockton Housing Authority. They accepted the proposal and from that point on our feet were firmly entrenched in the Public Housing Industry. The initial applications were developed in Visual Basic 3.0 and utilized a handheld computer with an integrated barcode scanner to facilitate the transfer of Inventory.

Three years later, we entered into an agreement with Brockton to develop a full-financial and tenant management application. The software was developed in Borland's Delphi, a Pascal-based 32-bit Windows development environment. Pascal was very easy for me to adapt to since it was the base language used at Bridgewater State College.

After several years working with Public Housing Agencies we began to look for alternative ways for smaller agencies to utilize information technology. That brought us to the Internet. PHAnetwork.com was born in 2002 as a tool to allow smaller Housing Agencies (with likewise smaller budgets) to manage their day-to-day operations. It was (and still is) written using Active Server Pages (ASP), JavaScript and a host of 32-bit Windows modules written in Visual Basic 6. The application has far exceeded our expectations at the outset and at this juncture in 2008 we are on the verge of unleashing it nationwide.

From All Fours to Standing Tall

The evolution is complete but there are still hurdles ahead. Today, I develop in ASP.NET using VB.Net. I use an application framework developed by Paul Sheriff and Associates (see Clipper days above) which provides a solid foundation for developing Web applications. If you are an independent ASP.NET programmer, I strongly recommend you check it out.

This has been an enjoyable exercise for me as I recall the times, tools and people from my computer programming past. Some areas I hadn't thought about in over a decade seem like just yesterday. I'm sure years from now, the memories of writing these articles will have the same effect.

Please feel free to comment on this series of articles. I can take it. As Dirty Harry said, "Go ahead, make my day!"