AlanBarber.Org
Monday, June 16, 2008
How did you get started in software development?
How did you get started in software development?
I figured I’d join in and do the Mike Eaton Challenge and post my history as a techie…
How old were you when you started programming?
Oh I was about 10 or 11 I guess when I started programming.
How did you get started in programming?
My family had an Epson 286 12Mhz w/ 4mb of ram and MS-Dos 3.22. I used to play a game called MathBlaster(tm). The original version was writing in gwbasic. You had to start the gwbasic interpreter then stick in the mathblaster game disc and type run “color” to start the color version of the game. Occasionally we would mess up and mis-type this and got error messages. Finally one day I found the manual for GWBasic and was introduced to all this code and started trying sample code.
What was your first language?
GW-Basic 3.x originally but quickly switched over to QBasic and later to PowerBasic.
What was the first real program you wrote?
I guess my first real program was at my first job. Basically a vb6 app the parses xml files and generates web surveys from it. It builds the HTML/ASP, Javascript verification and SQL table definitions.
What languages have you used since you started programming?
GWBasic, QBasic, PowerBasic, Visual Basic 6.0, VB.Net, C, C++, C#, PHP, Perl, T-SQL, Javascript and a tiny bit of Cobol
What was your first professional programming gig?
Programmer at Corporate Research International.
If you knew then what you know now, would you have started programming?
Most definitely. I think the biggest thing was that I believed that the market in the area was larger than it really was. While there are plenty of “IT” jobs there really isn’t that much programming work around. I would have done a few internships and spent more time networking to get my name out there when I started to search for programming jobs. It would have made my job searching a lot easier.
If there is one thing you learned along the way that you would tell new developers, what would it be?
Don’t get too focused on specific technologies or tools. You can always learn a new technology within a short period of time. It’s more important to practice methodology and learning how to solve problems. I’ve seen too many “programmers” come and go that have an impressive list of technologies and/or tools on their resume but struggle to solve basic problems.
What’s the most fun you’ve ever had… programming?
Hmm.. I guess I would say the most fun I’ve had programming was early on when I first started programming. I used to create all sorts of silly basic programs on that old 286 machine. I made banking software where floppy discs were atm cards. I created the system to control a submarine. I build the software that would automate and control Jurassic Park. I even setup a serial port connection to a 386 laptop and created a simple web server and browser to simulate the internet before my family ever got online.
on 06/16/2008 at 07:38 PM
Computers & Technology • Work • (0) Comments • Permalink