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Poll: Was one of your parents a programmer?

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Poll: Was one of your parents a programmer?

#1

Post by japhyr »

I first learned to program from my father when I was about 5 years old, so it's hard for me to imagine learning to program without someone nearby to answer all the incidental questions we have when we are first learning.

I am wondering if most people here had a parent or another immediate family member who introduced them to programming. If not, how did you get started?

Re: Poll: Was one of your parents a programmer?

#2

Post by ColinWright »

No one I knew could program. Very few people I knew even knew what a computer was. When I was 16, based on things I'd read, I designed a circuit to play tic-tac-toe, and later I designed a circuit to add numbers. I never got round to adding a clock and designing a real processor, because at about that time I came across the TRS-80. So I bought one and taught myself to program from the (actually rather good) manual.

I taught myself Z80 code from a book (someone Rodney, or something), then wrote a compiler from a limited subset of BASIC to Z80 machine code. No assembler, no linker, no loader, just a straight conversion from BASIC source to Z80 machine code residing in memory.

Added in edit: Radnay Zaks, "Programming the Z80", first published 1979.

The subset of BASIC was enough to actually write the compiler, and I remember adding the DATA and READ statements to the compiler, then using them, and the net result was smaller. The DATA and READ statements allowed data-driven techniques, so code generation became simpler. It was an interesting insight - a more powerful program was sometimes actually smaller, implemented in less code.

And all this was mentor-less, as I knew no one who could program. It was 1979, and I was 17 (although I turned 18 a few months later).

Re: Poll: Was one of your parents a programmer?

#3

Post by pyalot2 »

At the time I wrote my first programs I was about 10 years old and I wrote them on an IBM x8680 that an acquaintance donated to us because he'd have thrown the machine away otherwise.

I didn't receive any tutoring in programming until to the age of 22.

Back then there was no internet and tutoring in IT was unthinkable in schools. Barely anybody had a computer in the first place, something which just a short while after changed quickly.

Re: Poll: Was one of your parents a programmer?

#5

Post by x0x0 »

I learned to program in 8 bg -- in 1990, 8 years before google. My technical references where a single c++ book and later a borrowed (a teacher at school knew an engineering professor at a local university) copy of msdn on a pile of cds in a box. My parents where not programmers; few people where at that time, and my parents didn't know any. I wouldn't have internet access for another 5 years, and when I got it, it was over a 56k baud modem.

Re: Poll: Was one of your parents a programmer?

#8

Post by spc476 »

I learned programming mostly from the book that came with my first computer (at 15) and magazines (Byte magazine was a wonderful resource in the mid 80s, as well as the magazines specific to my computer). I really didn't have anyone to ask questions, so any questions I had, I had to puzzle out on my own.

Re: Poll: Was one of your parents a programmer?

#9

Post by k-mcgrady »

I selected other. I had a close family member who taught me about computer hardware and introduced me to programming but he didn't really code. He'd done some coding in computer courses he took but very basic stuff. In other words I was introduced to programming by him but wasn't actually taught any programming.
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