crunch@well.UUCP (John Draper) (10/21/87)
PROGRAMMERS NETWORK - A Historic look
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After living in the "real world" out there for the past 10 years,
I've had my share of being burned, and "taken advantage of" by all those
marketing slouths, so I've decided to form a group of programmers in a
very loose network I call the "Programmers Network". It's an information
exchange system where we share information on new computers, Software
companies, Marketing companies, and just about everything interesting
for the "Cottage Industry" programmer. It all got started when I learned
that I wasn't the only person being burned by a bad contract, or un-ethical
business practices by certain companies.
We started keeping track of companies that have burned programmers,
by underpaying them, or not giving them recognition for all their
intellectual work. More and more people started to contribute to this
list, then we started getting interested in exchanging technical
information. This was important because we had to stay "Competitive"
with larger companies by sharing our resources.
In Summer of 1985, the WELL contacted us and invited us on their system,
to provide an "Information service" to programmers. Before that, we were
on "Proper UNIX" site name "proper" which was a private machine operated
by a UNIX Guru here in Oakland Ca. This was our FIRST presence on UseNet.
Some of you Old timer may have recognized some of our postings.
I Organized the programmers Network into several Key Sections outlined
below:
** Job forum - Programmers Looking for Work, and Work looking for
programmers. "Head hunters" now extract and contribute information.
** Legal issues involving programmers and how to protect their intellectual
property.
** Informative tutorials concentrating on NEW Computers focusing on
the "Trials and Tribulations" of programming the new machines,
little "Gotchas", Marketing suggestions for selling software
on the new machines, and what tools are available.
** Organized Group projects for software development to produce public
domain software development tools. Some of which have ended up in
our library, and others released in the public domain.
** Raising DEFENCE FUNDS for programmers under litigation or who has
legal problems.
** NEW!! - We are organizing an extensive software development tools
library in source code.
There is NO fee to join, and to be able to DIRECTLY participate in
our projects, we ask that you join the WELL. Call (415) 332-4335
for info on that.... You don't have to be a DIRECT participant to take
advantage of our resources, as we publish periodic postings on UseNet,
BIX and the WELL. Our direction is directly influenced by YOU and your
mail input. We invite your suggestions and react accordingly.
So, if you are a student, and want a taste of what it's like in the
"real world", then you might consider joining in our projects.
Other networks have also shown an interest to have our presence, so
stay tuned for more announcements.
We are just starting a new project called the "Crunched Shell", See
the previous postings and Usenet Archives. For those that missed it,
I can individually mail them to you if I don't get "Swamped".
We are also undergoing some changes and re-organization to stay in tuned
with future events and announcements. If anyone out there has any good
suggestions, please mail them in, I look at ALL mail, and usually
respond individually IF our mailer doesn't barf it back at me.
One more thing... Please get those suggestions on what Mac Actions
you want to see in the "Crunched Shell". I'm planning on posting a
consolidated list of the suggestions as soon as a few more come in.
So, thats just about IT, and I hope nobody flames me because of
the info I mentioned about the WELL, it was mentioned for informational
purposes only, with non-commercial intent.
John Draper
Programmers Network
"The place where we all live and learn"
...ihnp4!ptsfa!well!crunch