DG and LMI



Accomplishments: (in roughly chronological order)


Multibus Driver Guide:
	This serves as basic documentation for users wishing to write
drivers for mulibus devices.  This area needs much work in the
way of software support, which I am now qualified to do.  (Thanks to the
research that went into writing the guide.)  I feel that this was a
good experience for learning about something from scratch, motivated by
the need to produce documentation for the customer.


Tape Software Documentation:
	This was simply the creation of user documentation that didn't
exist, although it served as good practice for developing my abilities
to write documentation.
	

Release 2.1:
	This experince made several of LMI's needs clear to me:

	1) better tracking and fixing of bugs reported by the customer

	2) support software for release and software support

	3) an evolution of the system towards design modularity
	   to aid in maintenance

	4) a cooperative effort in engineering toward redesigning
	   major facilities within the system


New Quarter inch tape software:
	I rewrote this in attempt to solve the problems we had
encountered.  It seems that it is a harware problem.


Burn In Software:
	This was a reorganization of the software, along with fixing
some of the testing software to be more user friendly and more reliable.


Fairly Complete Backup Facility:
	This was my first major design project. The major concern in the
design of this facility is upon the user interface.  The goal was to
provide a multi-purpose, extensable and bug-free window interface that
would allow the user to backup files from any machine to any tape drive
or to another machine, and in any supported tape format.  Unfortunately,
our window system and its facilities do not allow flexible design of
software, which complicates this task greatly.  When it came time to
design the interface to the tape software, it became evident that
redesign of the tape software was sorely needed, which is what I am
presently doing.  When I am finished with the new tape software, I will
finish the backup facility, as task of perhaps one week.  Though my
expectations of the backup facility may not be met, we will have an
easy to use interface for backing up filesystems, along with a design
that will allow me to meet the original design intent as soon as 
some major improvements are made to the window system.  (See Pipe
Dreams)


CARRY TAPE and TAR support for quarter inch tape:
	Support for Symbolics Carry Tape and Tar formats was a quick
hack to translate a customer's tape in-house.  This did, though, allow
me to understand the requirements of other tape formats, which has
become important in the design of the new tape software.


New Tape Software:
	The redesign of tape support for the Lambda is becoming
complete.  The goals of the design are:

	1) modularity
		to allow easier maintenance and optimization

	2) extensability
		support for any tape format is very easy to add to the
		system, and is transparent to the user

	3) abstraction of operations
		this allows the user to interact directly with the
		devices or through an easily interfaced front end
		(like the backup facility)


Various System Patching and Customer Support:
	As always, I have been available to aid customers with problems,
both in our system software and their own programs.  In fact I hope to
make this an important part of the new release group.


Aiding other groups in Software Design:
	I have been intermittently working with various people in the
user interface group, lending whatever experience and knolwedge about
the system, to improve their design.


			     My Good Points


1) Knowledge about and experience with the system

2) Ability interface well with customers, managers, engineers and
   hackers in an unimposing manner

3) Willingness to understand various points of view and consider all
   apsects of many issues

4) Can reasonably deal with the day to day problems that small companies
   encounter

5) Commitment to finding the best solutions to problems, balanced with
   the understanding of time/value trade off

6) Commitment to the success of LMI



			     My Weak Points


1) Impatience with `unreasonable' people in the LMI environment

2) Difficulty in choosing managerial as opposed to technical career path

3) Difficulty in estimating time for technical projects




		       What I'd like to do at LMI


	I think that heading the Software Release and Support would be
the wisest for me at this time for the following reasons:

	1) development of my managerial skills

	2) chance to teach and direct inexperienced engineers

	3) ability to still contribute to software development

	4) opportunity to gain respect both as a manager and a hacker

	5) greatly improve software support of the customer

	6) it would be the best contribution I could make to LMI at this
	   point


	Of course we should discuss other alternatives, but I feel that
at least for the next year, this would be the most suitable.  This is a
matter that we really need to talk about in person, as I must fully
communicate my plan for the group.  Although, one crucial element in the
position would be that I can continue to develop software.