I've been called out by Robert Cain at ArcaneCode to answer these questions:
How old were you when you first started programming?
Adolescent. Possibly 12-13, I got a hold of a TRS-80 (that belonged to my brother in law) and an Apple IIe and wrote Applesoft BASIC & BASIC level 1 programs for fun.
How did you get started in programming?
I so enjoyed the creative process involved in making what were, at the time, very simple programs on the Apple IIe & TRS-80 that I was immediately hooked. From the minute I was able to coerce the computer to do what I wanted via programming, I knew that’s what I’d be doing as a career. Later on, I had the opportunity to attend a vocational high school so I enrolled in the Scientific Data Processing area of study (Yes, that’s what they called it at the time). I was sent out during my senior year on a work-study program and was able to take some nastily written programs and make them even worse. :)
What was your first language?
BASIC baby yeah!
What was the first real program you wrote?
My first programming job required me to maintain COBOL and dBase code, along with struggling with the network guy to setup one of the super early versions of a Novell Netware network (V 286 or 3, I forget). My first app from scratch was an invoicing program written in dBase for a construction company I later worked for. Yes, invoicing. Nothing terribly exotic I’m afraid.
What languages have you used since you started programming?
BASIC, dBase, COBOL, Perl, JavaScript, Pascal, C/C++, C#, VB, VB.NET, Clipper (don’t ask), SQL, and probably a few more I can’t recall right now. There are other languages I’ve toyed with or researched, and I like to read up on technologies/languages other than those I use (like Java, Ruby, Python, etc…) however they’re nothing I’ve used on the job.
What was your first professional programming gig?
Maintaining dBASE & COBOL programs working at a company that produced audio & video tapes for K-12 schools, universities & non profit organizations.
If you knew then what you knew now, would you have started programming / DBAing?
Absofreakinglutely.
If there one thing you learned along the way that you would tell new developers, what would it be?
Get out of your ivory tower. NOW. The world is messy, and a lot of the code you’ll see is too, like it or not. On top of that, if you actually want to be any good at programming, then you’ll spend the time outside of your 9-5 job working at learning new things. So don’t walk, run, ye whippersnappers, to the nearest bookstore and user group meeting and listen to those who’ve been around the horn before.
P.S. real developers aren’t afraid of the command line. So quit your whining and do a Start->Run: CMD.
What’s the most fun you’ve ever had … programming?
I’ve had some real good times pair programming. If you get the right vibes between the devs, you can split your team into 2’s and really crank out some good code. Those were the times of late night pizzas and harrowing rollouts of a B2B web application from a local Pennsylvania after market auto parts distributorship.
Who are you calling out?
Kevin Goff
