Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Poll: Was one of your parents a programmer?

news.ycombinator.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

51–60 of 68 posts

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

#51

Post by dmitry-vsl »

sklivvz1971 wrote: post #48
tikhonj wrote: post #12

One of my parents was a programmer and yet nobody mentored me! Which probably explains why my dad is a systems programmer writing drivers for Windows and I'm using Haskell on Linux to do programming language stuff with a healthy dose of PL theory. Hard to imagine any way to be so different while staying in the same field.

My dad coded mainframe systems for IBM, but actively discouraged me in my teen years. I did pair with a same aged friend. We co-learned BASIC and Z80 assembler at the age of 12.

My both mother and father developed software running on IBM mainframes for large USSR enterprises. It's interesting that USSR could not purchase mainframes legally so USSR worked around this restriction and finally was able to buy software with the help of KGB agents in Romania who introduced themselves to IBM sales as Romanian citizens. You can read more about it here [1] After crash of soviet economy my parents became unemployed and never worked as programmers again. My father teached me some C in TurboC IDE. Currently I am full stack web dev. [1] http://www.csd.uwo.ca/~magi/personal/humour/Computer_Folklor...

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

#52

Post by markhamilton »

My dad gave me my first push in QBASIC and simple batch programming around the same age, but ultimately it was my self-motivation that led me to learn C and C++. I'm glad it worked out that way because I have a better appreciation for garnering the underlying skills that let me put ideas that I have in motion.

I know it ultimately comes down to a person to execute an idea, but also showing that person that they can be resourceful by themselves in the first place is such a great potential.

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

#53

Post by kamme »

stevekemp wrote: post #46
michuk wrote: post #38

One day I was playing a game on my ZX Spectrum micro-computer (I was 9 or 10 at the time) when something unexpected happened. The loader threw an exception and I was presented with a weird listing of words and numbers which turned out to be program's source code. Something told me to mess around with it, I changed a few names and numbers and somehow managed to run the program. It worked and funnily enough, the things…

I remember Football Manager - as you say it was written in BASIC, one of the few games that I owned which was. I started hacking on a ZX Spectrum, initially via the orange manual, later with books from the library and so on. After BASIC I jumped to assembly, and kept up on assembly on MS-DOS 3.3, via Ralph Brown's interrupt list. I didn't try pascal, or any other real language, until many years later at university.

Aah, Ralph Brown's interrupt list, that takes me back a long time. I used to write assembler quite a lot when I was ~14year old. Now I'm a webdeveloper mainly doing php and some basic sysadmin stuff and it strikes me how far apart those things are. Assembler needs a different mindset and it's quite hard to get into it again.

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

#56

Post by chanux »

yoran wrote: post #26
tomjakubowski wrote: post #23

Both parents were programmers. Mom has been retired since before I was born, Dad is still working as a DBA nearing retirement. My brother and I are both employed as programmers, and my sister is due to graduate this summer with a CS degree.

You must have great Christmas dinners!

I see a major risk of the Christmas dinner being ruined by "Christmas tree". Hint: Donald Knuth

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

#58

Post by michuk »

stevekemp wrote: post #46
michuk wrote: post #38

One day I was playing a game on my ZX Spectrum micro-computer (I was 9 or 10 at the time) when something unexpected happened. The loader threw an exception and I was presented with a weird listing of words and numbers which turned out to be program's source code. Something told me to mess around with it, I changed a few names and numbers and somehow managed to run the program. It worked and funnily enough, the things…

I remember Football Manager - as you say it was written in BASIC, one of the few games that I owned which was. I started hacking on a ZX Spectrum, initially via the orange manual, later with books from the library and so on. After BASIC I jumped to assembly, and kept up on assembly on MS-DOS 3.3, via Ralph Brown's interrupt list. I didn't try pascal, or any other real language, until many years later at university.

Great game indeed. I remember translating it later all to Polish changing all the British premier league teams and players to local teams. My dad could not believe that was even possible :)

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

#59

Post by japhyr »

sklivvz1971 wrote: post #48
tikhonj wrote: post #12

One of my parents was a programmer and yet nobody mentored me! Which probably explains why my dad is a systems programmer writing drivers for Windows and I'm using Haskell on Linux to do programming language stuff with a healthy dose of PL theory. Hard to imagine any way to be so different while staying in the same field.

My dad coded mainframe systems for IBM, but actively discouraged me in my teen years. I did pair with a same aged friend. We co-learned BASIC and Z80 assembler at the age of 12.

Did your dad discourage you from working with mainframes, or discourage you from programming in general?
Post reply on HN