Re: Off topic: Divided by a common language (WAS: API receiver variable limit)

[Jim Langston <jimlangston@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

What's a boilerplate?  A boilerplate is a template.  It would be a program
that has the basics of what you are trying to do without any real meat.  Any
time you wanted to create a new program you would copy this boilerplate to
a new name and modify it.  I think you are asking where did the term boilerplate
for this type of question come from?  Very good question.  I'm not sure that
anybody knows, I've used the term for years just because everybody else does.

Why do you call /COPY members "copy books"?  That is a term only used on the
AS/400 as far as I can tell.  I think that's just a term that IBM made up and
everyone uses it.

Ahhh, the old "shop" controversy.  They are called "shops" because they
kinda describes the kind of things we do.  There are two types of shops,
there are stores, as in shopping centers, and there are manufacturing 
shops.  You would take your car to the "shop" to get it repaired.  Most
times "shop" is used by the people who work in one.  "I work in a sheet
metal shop", "I gotta get back to the shop", etc...  Even though we work
in an office, which is definitely not a shop, it is felt the type of work
we do would place us doing shop work.  Which is generally a trade skill,
metal working, welding, auto mechanics, and the such.  We are not really
doing office work or punching buttons, but we are building and repairing
things, computer programs and systems.

HTH,

Jim Langston

"McCallion, Martin" wrote:
> 
> So:
> 
> 1) What's a boilerplate?  I understand from the context, but where does
> the term come from, and why?
> 2) Why do you call /COPY members "copy books"?
> 3) Why do you call DP departments and/or software houses "shops"?  Over
> here a shop is a kind of building where you can buy things -- you know,
> big plate-glass windows, tills, all that?  I think you call them stores,
> though.
> 
> Cheers,
> 
> Martin.
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