Looks like a lot of work. I'm no electronics engineer but could you not have had some kind of wireless board with a light sensor (starts timer when registers light) that you could have strategically placed inside the freezer? But I suppose it might freeze admittedly lol. Alternatively, as the above ide was stupid, could you have put something on the wall preventing the full opening of the freezer door thus not able to leave open (could still prop open of course, but so can the alarm be ignored). I admit it wouldn't have been as much fun to build, but a simpler solution.

You are definitely right, your IT director has no idea what he is talking about. I would be interested though in how secure (or what you are securing), this could reflect the level of security required. Your best bet is to explain how vulnerable not having good security will potentially make your data. Point out (as others have mentioned) how expensive it will be to implement your own security framework. Also, be aware that when this goes t**ts up, the person they're going to point the finger at is you, NOT the IT Director as you are the implementor, so be aware. It is work noting that correct implementation of security in existing frameworks is NOT theory and someone with the title of IT Director should know this. Now you could take a couple of directions: 1. Tell them if this is really what is required, then please accept my resignation. 2. Ask the IT Director how he proposes to implement such a security system. Explain how you would value his experience in creating/maintaining such systems in the past. If/when he says it's not his place to write code but yours, then explain that what he is suggesting is also theoretical and that you will be using a framework to implement the security safely as he has expressed (and clarified) it's you that writes the code, not him. That might help.

Managers never get it, they just want the fastest and the cheapest, usually to justify their existence to their manager and then up the chain it goes. Project managers are even worse still because it all has to fit in their gantt chart and then, at the bottom of the pile, are scrum masters. More often than not, none of them have done any development work so they don't understand it nor know what's involved. None of them want to hear, "to implement this properly will take us 6-12 months" they just suggest we have 3 months. I envy you that you are in a position to retire.

"Meanwhile, Microsoft routinely makes decisions that had huge consequences for customers, and they just don't care" - agreed.

All big companies are run by marketing idiots. A certain fruit company being a great case in point as they treat all their customers as idiots by convincing them they're spending 2 * as much on the equivalent PC, just to get the fruit logo. I don't disagree with what you have said, I know MS can be a PITA but they do create mainstream OSs, so if there is a security vulnerability found, should they not patch it? (they'd certainly get serious backlash if they didn't), unfortunately that could mean a reboot. AFAIK servers don't automatically reboot, they just nag. If you have a Linux security issue first you have to know which one of the thousand or so distros that it affects. I'd like to use Linux but the sheer number of distros is bewildering. If I did use Linux for my development, I could give away my software or I could try and sell it to the 5 users that use Linux in a business environment (OK, I'm being flippant, but compared to a MS OS user base it's a no brainer really). Anyway, besides the point, I was merely pointing out your comments on COM, DCOM etc. were technically incorrect and that everything has it's flaws. I make my living, and have done for the past 25years, using MS products. I agree they're not perfect and yes they're frustrating and yes they f&*k up sometimes (well often). What mainstream alternative is better and flawless? FYI (not that you would be interested) but from memory there is (or was) a version of Windows called LTSB (Long Term Service Branch) or something like that, that didn't do updates (other than security updates I think) for 18 months. So no forced reboots. Never used it, I wanted to in a previous workplace but would have been a massive upheaval for their existing customers. That may help you if you're still stuck on some of your VMs.

By what you have said you must have started your career or at least invested some time of it to MS and MS technologies. So you are where you are today because of that experience. Something, I think, to be grateful for rather than just knocking MS. MS are not perfect by any means and have made mistakes. I'm a long term desktop dev and I am frustrated by how MS seems to be turning it's back on us desktop developers, but none of that would force me into abandoning a technology (that I make my living from) for another just because they don't do things the way I like. I too have thought about Linux, but only for fun and learning it's not a platform that I could make a living from as it's just not mainstream enough (do correct me if that's not the case). I'm pretty sure that using Linux and C++ is going to have it's issues too. The difference is that you are an intelligent guy and you will enjoy the intellectual load of learning something new, so you'll think it's better. To your point of changing terminology, specifically, of COM, DCOM, COM+ and ActiveX. Well that's not strictly speaking true, it's more than a change in terminology while they are all based on the original COM, DCOM is distributed (so COM over the network), COM+ added security and performance enhancements and ActiveX added OLE to COM I believe (to support ActiveX controls, but still have COM interfaces). So you could think of it as COMv1, COMv2, COMv3 and then ActiveX, (this in a time before MS versioning by year!) so more than just renaming.

Is "prefer composition over inheritance" functional? I'm not sure that it is. I think it's simply another OO approach to code re-use. Personally, I'm not against a certain level of inheritence, but I much prefer composing objects for functionality. I'm not sure if I'm missing something but what has a sealed class to do with immutability. A class is immutable if you can't change it's data, a sealed class means it can't be inherited from. I agree on the C# funtion point, it annoys me how everything needds to now be functional, I chose C# for it's OO properties, when I want to do funtional programming I'll use F#. (it'll be a pretty cold day in hell for that to happen though :laugh: )

Understanding the domain you are writing code for. I know that's quite specific per project, but nonetheless important I feel.

Aside from salary (I don't know if that salary is good in your area, but it seems a bit low) I think you will struggle to find a junior willing to learn a language that was retired 20 years ago and, even if you did, the chances that you would manage to retain a junior working in a language that was retired 20 years ago would be slim. That would then defeat the point of the issue you are trying to address. I would suggest you talk to your boss again, save the budget on hiring a junior developer and use it to rewrite the application in a modern up-to-date language. This would be good for you and good for your boss in the long run. Don't misunderstand me, I loved VB6 back in the day, but that was back in the day, those days are long gone. Although tempting and may appear logical, I wouldn't consider moving straight to VB.Net either, have a look at alternatives first (C#, F#, Delphi), to try and find the best tool for the job. I moved from VB6 to C# (I flirted with VB.Net and did a lot with Delphi inbetween). It's also worth considering which languages give you a large pool of available development talent, these usually migrate to the environments that have the most earning/employment potential (not always the best). I assume it is currently a desktop application, perhaps consider moving it to a more modern web framework. There's no advantage to it being a web app per se, this just increases the talent pool available to you. Your options are endless really. Then once you have that done, finding a junior should be easier, although, potentially more expensive. But then you wouldn't need a junior as your boss could replace you far more easily should you decide to move on.