Chad Campbell (no relation) called me out in his Meme blog post. I saw his post earlier this week, and have been waiting until I had some time, so here goes...
- How old were you when you first started programming?
I turned my first line of code when I was a Sophomore in college in the fall of 1967, so that would make me 19 at the time. I think I got a C in the Fortran IV class because I just couldn't "get it". This was a large class and programs were done on punch cards batched overnight to some huge mainframe system with spinning tape drives and blinking lights, just like in the movies :)
- How did you get started in programming?
Scroll forward to the fall of 1968 and a PhD in the Math department took me under his wing and gave me free access to a teletype terminal he had for a side job doing BASIC. He taught me enough to get me going, and that was all it took to be hooked.
- What was your first language?
Very first, Fortran IV, first I really learned and used, BASIC.
- What was the first real program you wrote?
I started writing programs to check my Sophomore-level math homework, worked out programs to calculate areas under curves, etc. ... this was 1968, calculators hadn't hit the college level yet... we were all using slide rules, and my printouts caused no small amount of consternation to the others in the classes :)
- What languages have you used since you started programming?
Yikes... Fortran IV, BASIC, PL1, ADA (obviously not in alphabetic order here), many versions of Assembly code up through the Intel 386 chip-set, Pascal, C, C++, C#, and VB, although there may be some missing.
- What was your first professional programming gig?
I did a lot of software to test my hardware while I was still thinking I wanted to use my M.S. in Electrical Engineering. I also did some Feedback Control simulations for flight controls... but I really count it as starting when I did the BIOS for CP/M-86 in 1981 in 8080 assembler. Over a 12-month span I wrote the CP/M-86 BIOS twice (two different companies), and the MS-DOS 86 BIOS once.
- If you knew then what you know now, would you have started programming?
Oh yeah... I figured out this is *way* much more fun than working for a living :) .. and after working as an antenna-rigger, boilermaker, farm laborer, truck driver, engineering technician, and musician, I feel I have valid history to make that comparison :)
- If there is one thing you learned along the way that you would tell new developers, what would it be?
Don't stop. This industry isn't one that you can get the knowledge then after work go home and sit on the couch in your underwear and have 'princess' bring you a beer [or 'prince', as the case may be]... it's a continual process of learning.
- What's the most fun you ever had programming?
I thought doing the
full-bordered skinning Windows desktop work for a failed company was very cool... well, not the failed par! But then Silverlight came along, and I found I could combine all that goodness with web development, and I don't think I've had the most fun yet :)
- What's the most fun you've ever had... programming?
Umm... I don't think I can say programming is the most fun I've ever had... but programming is the most fun I've ever had working, and when you consider I played guitar for a living for a while, that's saying something.
- Who are you calling out?
Stay in the 'Light!
posted @ Saturday, June 21, 2008 1:05 PM