How long have you been programming?

[Dru Lee Parsec]

I bet I still win.
:D

[gish]

yeah...well in the 70's I was ony 2 years old in 1979....
:D

[Dru Lee Parsec]

Dude, you were born the year I graduated high school.

I swear that's a total co-incidence. The two events were completly unrelated.

[gish]

lol....

[sans-hubris]

I was born two years after gish.

[gish]

wow...the world does revolve around me!!!

I knew it!!

[GnuVince]

My first computer was a Apple ][, but I voted for iMacs, because that's when I started programming.

[damonbrinkley]

Originally posted by gish
yeah...well in the 70's I was ony 2 years old in 1979....
:D

same here

[Dru Lee Parsec]

OK, who voted "I helped code the Lunar Lander Mission?" Who was it? Mr Knuth, was it you?

Let's see, the first moon landing was in June 1969 and I started coding in BASIC in 1972. Nope, it wasn't me.

Bonus Question: What were the 4 colors used in CGA graphics?

Sarcastic super bonus question: What drug addled hippie decided that those four colors would be useful for anything?

[Strike]

Originally posted by Dru Lee Parsec
Bonus Question: What were the 4 colors used in CGA graphics?
Cyan, Magenta, White, Black

Sarcastic super bonus question: What drug addled hippie decided that those four colors would be useful for anything?
I thought you did ...

Actually, Test Drive (the first one) looked pretty hot in CGA colors. ... or something.

[Dru Lee Parsec]

What? Me a drug addled hippie?? If I could remember the 60's and 70's I'm sure I'd be able to contradict that accusation. ;)

[Strike]

Funny thing is: though those are supposed to be in sequential order, while I remember the Apple ][ (seeing as how I did my first programming, albeit minimal, on it), I was only 3 and a half years old when the Apple commercial played. As such, I don't remember it.

[stuka]

"Back when I was a kid...."
Yeah right. I DID do my first programming on an Apple ][, in our "Computer Literacy" (joke) course in 8th grade, circa 1985. In HS, moved on to heavier "Computer Math" course (again in Basic, on an Apple ][). Actually had my first brush with fancy network computing in '91 at the University of Oklahoma, learning Fortran. Of course those fancy networked computers still had amber screens....

[Dru Lee Parsec]

OK, I first programmed on an IBM 360 mainframe using BASIC. We connected to the mainframe via a modem where you set the phone handset (Yes, this was a DIAL phone) into the cradle. We conencted at 300 baud. The entire class shared ONE teletype. We type our code onto a roll of yellow paper, there was no CRT screen.

You saved your code onto a strip of yellow paper tape. There was a line of holes down the middle for a gear to feed the paper. There were up to 4 holes in a line to teh left and right of that center strip of holes. Those 8 holes represented on byte. It was 1971 and I was 12 years old.

When I moved to high school we also had a connection to an IBM 360 system, but we had CRTs this time. This was the wild 70's and I pretty much looked just like Eric Forman on "That 70's Show", except I also played guitar and bass in a band. So at least I was cooler that Forman. During that time the Apple 1 came out. It had 8k of RAM on board. If you wanted another 8K you had to buy a $200 circuit board.

Went to college the first time and did Fortran and APL on teletypes and punch cards. I dropped out of all my college classes to except my music classes and then eventually dropped out of those.

After too many years of wandering aimlessly through life I went back to school at age 29 and (eventually) got degrees in applied math and computer science. Learned Pascal, C, and C++.

I got a job writing object oriented QA test scripts in a language called 4Test that was essentially a C++ variation. Moved into the programming department and started writing database code in C++.

That same company needed to rewrite it's product and Java seemed to be the logical choice. We could write code that worked as an application or as an applet in a browser, we could write it as a client server app using RMI or as a local application. Java fit our needs so I learned Java.

I now write code for Union Bank's online banking service using Java servlets, Java Server Pages, Web Services, JDBC connections to Oracle, Enterprise Java Beans, and whatever new technology Sun throws at us every year or so. Right now my focus is Web Services using Apache Axis via Web Sphere.

But I still play guitar. So even though I cut my 70's long hair I'm still cool. Right??

[stuka]

/me is having a flashback to the beginning of (Neal Stephenson?) book I read part of at 1/2 Price Books....if I didn't already know yer name, I might be suspicious!

[Dru Lee Parsec]

My life reminds you of a Neal Stephanson book? How cool is that? I hope it's Cryptonomicon rather than Diamond Age.

[stuka]

Heh - no, it's a different book...not one of the novels. It talks about his introduction to computers, which involved a teletype, and a phone, etc. VERY similar to your first paragraph. (and if it WERE Cryptonomicon, who would you want it to be?)

[Dru Lee Parsec]

and if it WERE Cryptonomicon, who would you want it to be?)

General MacArthur

[stuka]

heh - wouldn't have guessed that one. But still a very good call.

[TheBeansprout]

I was only born in '89.

*Feels very young!*

My first computer was some form of 386 "portable" with something like a 10" screen, running win 3.1. IT WEIGHED A TON! I was 8 or something at the time.

Actually, before that, my granddad had an ancient system, I forget teh name, but it had 2x 5 1/4" diskette drives to load things on to. Cost around £800. I still remember an old phrase from the manual: "you can buy a hard disk for this system, but remember, a 1Mb hard disk will cost much more than the PC!"

EDIT: why so many Mac options on this poll??

[sicarius]

EDIT: why so many Mac options on this poll??

because for quite a whlie they have been THE computer. (not to sound mac elitist).

[Blag]

Well......i born in 1977......and begin programming in when i was 14.....with some Pascal and Think Pascal.....but then i drop it.....and begin again when i was 20......almost got 26, so i have been programming for about 6 years.:plot:

[Dru Lee Parsec]

why so many Mac options on this poll??
Because in Apple's Hey Day they were the ones making the historic big steps in home computer hardware.

The Apple I and Apple ][ were really the first useful home computers. The PC came out for business and the PC Jr. was released for home use but it was so under powered (even for it's time) that it didn't last long.

In 1984 Apple released the first Macintosh and also released one of the best television commercials ever created
http://www.uriah.com/apple-qt/1984.html
(Created by marketing geniuses Chiat-Day)

That commercial marked 2 major changes in the computing world. First, the Macintosh worked via a GUI and a mouse rather than terminal windows (Remember, Microsoft windows didn't exist yet). And 2nd, it openly brought up the idea that your choice of computer was being forced upon you by an uncaring monopoly. The odd thing was the monopoly at that time wasn't Microsoft, it was IBM.

The more recent Mac options are there because nothing truely new has occured in software or hardware in the past 10 years other than Linux. So I chose ways to mark time by picking a point when some significantly identifiable piece of hardware was released. Hence we have the iMac (about 5 years ago) and the new G5 (representing something that has occured within the past few months).

Otherwise it would have been boring to have a poll that simply said: How long have you been programming ?

A few months
Less than 4 years
Less than 8 years
At least 10 years
and so on.

[lora]

OK, well my first computer was a TI99-4A.. where does that fit in the picture. I did program in Basic and i stored all my programmed games on cassette tapes. the code i got out of monthly magazines and i couldn't wait until the next month's arrived.. i was a dork!

[Dru Lee Parsec]

OK, well my first computer was a TI99-4A.. where does that fit in the picture.

I had one. I loved that computer. It was my first "personal" computer. I think it would be after the 1984 commercial but before CGA. So "I remember CGA" would be appropriate.

Wern't those magazines great? I learned so much from copying other people's code and debugging games. We just don't have anything like that any more.

Too bad.

Remember the books you could buy with like, 100 games in BASIC? It was just page after page of source code. Awesome stuff.

[sicarius]

We just don't have anything like that any more.


Well, the open source movement may not agree with you here, but I kind of see what your saying.

[Dru Lee Parsec]

I meant that we don't have magazines or books like that any more. Those were fun.

[sicarius]

Ah, sorry. I thought you were saying there wasn't anywhere to get good code to learn from. My fault.

[McStooge]

Man...it feels like I'm dealing with ancient artifacts here! I was born in '89 and I've always had access to top of the line computers (atleast to the stuff you guys are talking about!). But anyway...

I did some BASIC programming at age 12 along with some HTML at age 12. I quit for a year as I got into the InfoSec and CompSec fields. Now I know that InfoSec and CompSec requires you to have a good database of programming languages so now I'm back! I started again by doing HTML for a while....then I got into VB for a little bit...and now I'm starting Python (which I must admit is quite enjoyable).

Although I haven't done much programming in my life, I have an insatiable mind that continues to learn and explore and that propels me into studying computer languages.

[inkedmn]

i started programming about 2.5 years ago. :)

[jemfinch]

I started programming in 2000.

Jeremy

[DNAunion2000]

Can't remember the year, but my first computer was a Commodore 128 (whopping 128KB of RAM!) which I "programmed" with some form of BASIC. I remember having to write line numbers, something like this:

0010 IF x > 5 GOTO 0020
0015 LET x = x + 2
0016 PRINT "x was modified"
0017 GOTO 0025
0020 PRINT "x was not modified"
0025 ...

If you needed to add some logic you had renumber your lines - or you could leave huge gaps in your number sequences.

I remember green monochrome monitors, Compaq clones that folded up in two and were carried around like a large suitcase, DOS applications such as dBASE III, Lotus 1-2-3, and Word Perfect. Lotus 1-2-3 was great --- a 20x20 spreadsheet or so was about all you get into memory. I remember having to put a floppy disk in to load a program into RAM, then take it out and put in another floppy disk that held your data. I remember hard drives coming out - at about 40MB. I remember buying a 386SX-16 for $1,700.

But I don't remember much at all about Apples/Macs.

[Dru Lee Parsec]

DNAUnion: I like your sig with Platt's law. I had a boss that had his own law.

Rule 1: Every program can be reduced in size by one byte.
Rule 2: Rule 1 can be applied recursivly.

[DNAunion2000]

Platt's first law is my signature at work, so my bosses are exposed to it in each e-mail I send them.


Platt has a second law too. Paraphrasing:

"The amount of cr*p in the universe is conserved: if you have less cr*p to do it is only because you've managed to dump some of it onto someone else's head - there's no such thing as making it disappear."

It rings a bell for those of us on the receiving end.

Another one I like (it's not Platt's) goes something like this:

"Walking on water and designing an information system from specifications are easy, as long as both are frozen."

[sicarius]

Hehe. A frozen spec...that'll be the day.

[gsoft]

I feel so young. Started Programming in 2000 with Basic it was my first use of PC never used a PC before it. All i can remember was wtf am i doing?

I guess in 4yrs lots can happen.

[Whiteknight]

I notice how all your options in the poll are about macs. what do us non-mac users use to reference our careers?

I started tinkering wround with gw- and q- basic around the mid 90's but didnt start getting into any useful programming until around 2000-2001.

yeah, alot can change in 4 years.

[DNAunion2000]

The following may ring a bell to some of us older folk.

Our university gives away books - "free to good homes" - every now and then and I saw an ancient one on computers and couldn't help skimming through it.

”Microcomputers can also use a form of hard disk, called Winchester disks. Winchester disk units contain a small (5 ¼ inch) nonremovable hard diskthat can store up to 20 million bytes of data. These units cost approximately $2,500.” (James O Hicks Jr., Management Information Systems: A User Perspective, West Publishing Co., 1984, p85)

"Huge" 20 MB - that's MB, not GB - hard drives, and they cost only $2,500!

”The smallest of the computers systems are called micros and minicomputers. Microcomputer systems typically have between 16K and 256K of primary storage.” (James O Hicks Jr., Management Information Systems: A User Perspective, West Publishing Co., 1984, p80)

16K to 256K - that's KB, not MB - of RAM.

”One powerful tool available to the finance manager is the spreadsheet. Most personal computers support some kind of spreadsheet program (such as VISICALC and SUPERCALC), allowing users to build a matrix on the screen.” (James O Hicks Jr., Management Information Systems: A User Perspective, West Publishing Co., 1984, p245)

No Excel...no Lotus 1-2-3.

”Generally a flexible disk known as a diskette or floppy disk is used. A diskette may be either 5 ¼ inches or 8 inches in diameter.” (James O Hicks Jr., Management Information Systems: A User Perspective, West Publishing Co., 1984, p238)

Many "kids" these days don't even know what a floppy disk is, let alone a 5 1/4" one...let alone an 8" one.

”Another form of magnetic tape that is widely used on microcomputer systems is cassette tape. Physically, these cassettes are identical to cassettes used in stereo sound systems…” (James O Hicks Jr., Management Information Systems: A User Perspective, West Publishing Co., 1984, p82)

Yes, "kids", people used to use cassette tapes to store computer information. Oh, you don't know what a cassette tape is?????

”Apple Computer Company started the personal computer industry in 1977 when its founders, two young college students, built the first personal computer in a garage. Despite fierce competition from subsequent entrants to the market, Apple has managed to keep a leading position. Figure 10-9 shows the estimated market shares for various hardware manufactures in 1982. [Apple 23%; Radio Shack 22%; IBM 14%; others 41%]” (James O Hicks Jr., Management Information Systems: A User Perspective, West Publishing Co., 1984, p241)

Apple, the leader in market share? Radio Shack second?

”Control Program for Microcomputers (CP/M) is a widely used operating system for personal computers. It has been in use for a long time, and is continuously being updated. … For years CP/M operating system was considered the de facto standard for the microcomputer industry. But IBM, with the introduction of its personal computer, has decided to support another system, the Disk Operating System by Microsoft (MS-DOS).” (James O Hicks Jr., Management Information Systems: A User Perspective, West Publishing Co., 1984, p242-243)

The birth of M$.

[Dru Lee Parsec]

Mere children all of you! My first program was typed onto a roll of yellow paper on a teletype, saved on a roll paper tape, and the teletype was connected to an IBM 360 mainframe via an acoustic modem that we had to dial into. And when I say "dial" I mean DIAL as in rotery phone.

Then I went to college where we type our program onto punch cards one line at a time (in Fortran). You'd hand one of the "priest" of the computer system your box of cards and they'd run it for you. Then you'd go to your class. After class you'd come back to see if your program had run yet. If so then there was a printout on the output table. You'd read it over, debug it, fix/replace the punch cards and then run it again.

Each iteration of a bug fix took at least half an hour.

And did I mention we had hike to the computer lab uphill in the snow?

[TLogic]

Started programming in 83 with an atari 800xl using basic. I was 11 years old.

[MJPhill]

And did I mention we had hike to the computer lab uphill in the snow?

Both ways?

[bdl]

Started on an Apple II at school at age 13 (1983), the teacher showed me a little Pascal, and I was fortunate enough to receive a Commodore Vic-20 about a year later and started programming in BASIC.

[kryptech.net]

wow, I also started coding in 2000, well I learned HTML in 97. but didnt start real programming til 00.

[Whiteknight]

bdl: i was born in '83.

yeah, i started programming in java only 5 years later....[/bull]