work

[Jay Vaughan]

> Hey, good to hear you've found a job! So you'll be involved with  
> ERTMS,
> ETCS and that sort of thing?
>

dunno about that, all i know really about it so far is that there is  
a lot of code to port, test, do the docs for, re-do the docs for,  
docs, docs, docs.  looks like i'll be the docs guy for a while,  
anyway, while i catch up.  that suits me.

> Probably it'll be like my job: whilst I work at a mobile phone  
> company,
> it actually involves very little having to do with mobile phones.
> Friends and family mistakenly think I actually know anything about the
> damn things, or even about tariffs. Ha ha! :)
>

could be that i start just pushing forms, lets see.  whats really  
weird is that the job involves daily train rides across vienna, so at  
least that is something the universe might be trying to tell me.

> What's interesting is that the EU is pushing the product that  
> you'll be
> working on, and if we disregard the British and the Dutch, European
> governments seem committed towards trail travel and transport. You'll
> probably find the French railways/government opposing cross-border
> operations, and the Germans pushing it. That's just the way it is...
>

thats what i've been told, that it really is highly lucrative and a  
lot of very competent engineering involved, but rank with borderline  
stupidity.  it is to be expected with anything dealing with the  
command of word, of course, but hey .. the goal is: none of the words  
we use will crash the train.

> And whilst it sounds interesting what you're doing, it's also not  
> really
> my sort of thing. Having an angry customer is one thing, having  
> several
> hundreds of tons of metal passing a danger signal at high speed is  
> quite
> another.

yeah, its not all that bad though, considering that trains wouldn't  
be useful if the extreme case were the norm, after all.  don't  
discount the databases and databases of trains that got there on  
time, and turned around and came back on time, too ..


> But it would be interesting to know what sort of technology you'll be
> using (platforms, operating systems if applicable, etc.), insofar that
> it isn't covered by a non-disclosure clause in your contract.

a surprising amount of detail is public information, it is done on an  
open bid platform, and certification within any scope of government  
is supposed to be for the public good, after all.

grunt-work wise, the project target is to get code ported from one OS  
to another, and do it superlatively while preparing for a new release  
and hardware rollout.  i'm only on the tools and platform side; the  
real challenge is going to be taking care of the applications/API  
people, en masse, but i suppose thats where the documentation comes  
in ..



;
--
Jay Vaughan