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Poll: How long have you been programming?

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311–320 of 329 posts

Re: Poll: How long have you been programming?

#311

The better poll would have been: when did you start programming. I started really young so programming was never scary to me. It was just like a slower version of drawing or cooking. i.e. you're making something but it takes a long time to do the code "recipe" to get the ultimate result. ... It also didn't help that the only way to save your programs was to play them to audio cassette...

Paper, dude, paper... xD

Re: Poll: How long have you been programming?

#312
post #115

I started out in 2001. Back then I was working for some company as a graphics designer -- I had been there for about 1 year (fresh out of school) -- building the layouts for their countless websites. Back then the whole internet industry was about to collapse and I could see the proverbial axe dangling over me come the end of my year contract. A coworker of mine was responsible for the programming. Mostly perl and ph…

You didn't mention your career path after you quit your design job to develop your programming skills. I'm curious how you landed your first job without a piece of paper and do you use go in your day job?

I spent 2.5 years at home learning. To eat , I took part-time temp jobs. Anything that would keep me at home most of the time, while still enabling me to pay the bills. After that I got a job as a C# developer for a company.

Without any working experience (as a programmer) or paperwork, I knew this was going to be difficult. It turns out that some companies value enthusiasm and the ability to demonstrate you can and will learn fast, as more important. I had both of these on my side, so I got the job.

I did not have a Github profile at the time, but I made sure I showed them a CD with my most notable homebrew work. I would advise a Github profile instead though. Just put everything on there that you feel might be worth it. Even if it doesn't really have any use. It's about the way you write code and go about solving problems that is interesting to the interviewers.

Re: Poll: How long have you been programming?

#313
My first program was at MIT in 1960. I didn't like FORTRAN (note: all caps required), so stayed out of computing until the late 60s. Then it was (macro) assembly language, Lisp (1980), C, Objective C (80's), C++, Scheme, Standard Meta Language 90, Miranda, Hugs, OCaml, Standard Meta Language 97, Haskell 98 and now working on Haskell 2010.

Re: Poll: How long have you been programming?

#314
I started in FORTRAN at MIT in 1960 and now prefer Haskell, OCaml, Ur/Web and SML97. Along the way, I picked up several (macro) assembly languages, wrote some DSLs, and dabbled in Objective-C before C++ became available. Since Haskell can now be as fast as or faster than C, I see no reason to go back.

Re: Poll: How long have you been programming?

#315
post #224

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I was a business major and just found this great site and started teaching myself programming a year ago. I started with Python...the question that always nags me is that,in what situations (in programming) would this deficiency become a problem?

The fundamentals of programming are the algorithms & data structures. If you know these and you are able to implement them in a (compilable) programming language, you can call yourself a programmer.But this is just the beginning. In order to have no problems in one field of programming, you must know well the algorithms&data structs used in that field(web programming is very different from 3D engines programming or e…

I think it's also important to be able to look at your habits and the habits of others and create something that is the right trade-off between being abstracted/concise/readable/writeable/efficient/elegant.

Re: Poll: How long have you been programming?

#316
If I'd answered this a couple of months ago, I'd have had to say 20+ years. But it was late January or early February 1982 when my parents bought a Commodore CBM-8032 "business machine" with an 8050 dual 5¼" disk drive and a daisy wheel printer, and I began learning how to be a total geek. They swore the novelty would wear off eventually; maybe give it another decade?

Re: Poll: How long have you been programming?

#317
I started out in 2002 as freelance php/mysql developer. Then 2003 I switched to microcontrollers 8051/avr for full time job then labview/VB/PLCs. After that at 2009, moved to new job, half sysadmin, half hw engineer, which doesn't required full time coding, may be a few bash/awk/sed scripts per week.

Re: Poll: How long have you been programming?

#318
First touch with computer - on an IBM PC AT in 1984. Did the first program in BASIC then. Regular programming started on an Intel Pentium/Linux in 1995. Pascal, C, C++, Java, JavaScript, PHP, Objective C, Shell Script etc. Never been out of touch.

Re: Poll: How long have you been programming?

#320
Apple II at high school led to Vic 20 to Commodore 64 (BASIC) to IBM PC clone (Turbo Pascal) to VAX at college (COBOL) to IBM System 36 to AS/400 (RPG) to pen tablets (Turbo C) to Newton (Newton Script) to Palm Sized PC, Windows Mobile (Visual C++) to iPhone (Objective C). Objective C favorite by a long way.
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