Poll: How long have you been programming?

This question is not very precise.

I started writing programs when I was 14, on a commodore pet that I found in my school.

Professionally? I wrote a little software during my master thesis time. This is kind of professional, but it was not the main objective. I did the same during my phd time (physics). It was not before 1 year after my phd, that I earned my money with software. Nowadays, my primary work is developing software, although I am a scientist.

So the answer would be:

30+ years, when I count my first programs

20+ years when I count from my first professional programs

10+ years when I count from working professionally and full time on software

I voted 10+, but I suggest, you restart the poll with a more precise question. (scientists can be a nuisance, aren't they?)

If you wanted to program a VIC-20, you opened the manual, read the preface, which starts like this:

"You are about to meet friendly computer! Friendly in price, friendly in size, to use and learn on experience. Most important you don't have to be computer programmer, or even typist, to use it!

If you're first time computerist, this manual will provide an excellent introduction to computing. Unlike most instruction manuals, you don't have to read through this whole book to get to the "good stuff." After reading Chapter (GETTING STARTED), you can go directly to chapter that interests you and start reading. If you're interested in animation turn to Chapter 4. If you like music, try Chapter 5.

The first page of each chapter has sample program to start you off. Just type the program exactly as shown ("Try Typing This Program") and see what happens. The rest of the chapter explains what you did, and shows how to do more. Chapter summarizes some important programming concepts, and explains the techniques used in sample programs."

(The manual was the baby of Michael S. Tomczyk, who wanted to strongly focus on the "user friendly" aspect of the VIC, including for programming)

Then you'd turn to chapter one, and start typing in the first example program:

   1 PRINT "VIC20"
   2 GOTO 1

You then had an approximately 150 additional pages explaining how to use the machine that for the most part assumed that "use" meant "program" - only a tiny fraction of the manual dealt with non-programming related activities. My dad learnt BASIC from that manual, and I learnt BASIC from him and went on to improve my skills with nothing but the Commodore 64 manual when we upgraded. Commodore continued that tradition with the Amiga, up until AmigaOS 2.04 (which came with ARexx, but not AmigaBASIC) but pushed it far less on the Amiga than on its 8-bit machines.

That's a large part of the difference: If you bought most home computers back then, and _especially_ Commodore machines, you got programming showed in your face - User was equated with programmer. And though a lot of people learnt how to load games and didn't bother with programming, the threshold to actually finding something exciting in programming was far lower.

I'm not suggesting we go back to the days where people get a BASIC prompt on starting a machine, but surfacing scripting capabilities for automation more, for example, would make a big difference.

Consider even something as trivial as macro recording that displays what it records and give people an easy way of modifying it, instead of hiding it "behind the scenes".

A lot people are programmers today because the plumbing was out in plain view and some of us found it fascinating and started figuring out what it did. But today the plumbing tends to be hidden and people go "magic. got it."

I was working in Monroeville, PA doing FORTRAN at Westinghouse. I didn't really consider that programming though. Got into Ruby, found that the web didnt regulate my every move. Quit my job to learn full time and haven't looked back.

The difference is how easy it is to find the information about what to do.

Someone totally new won't know what notepad is, won't know what html is, and won't know how to make the browser show it, and the manual that came with his computer will say nothing about it.

You start a browser, there's no hint what to do. You start searching for "how to make a web page" and you get a bewildering array of information, some of which are totally over-engineered.

On the other hand hooked up a VIC-20 or C-64, opened the manual, and what stared you in the face in the first chapter was your first program.

Calculated 6 years out in my head only to discover this :/

DO I ROUND UP OR DOWN!?