How did you become a professional programmer?
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When I was about 13, 1992, one day I can't remember why but I bought a book like "teach yourself c++ in N days", the book ships with a floppy that includes a borland C++ ide, I follow the instruction line by line to install the ide, then copy line by line the sample source code, and had my first Hello World program compiled and run successfully. But honestly, I found myself can't actually understand what pointer is after reading the pointer chapters over and over for N times, so I gave up, in fact at that time, I don't even know what I was doing, what is compiling, what is linking, what is parsing, I have no idea, to me, I just write some code, then press a button, wow, I have a running program! Later I move to Visual Basic, I found that for people who first learn to program, having an immediate visual respond is really a big plus and encouragement to keep learning. I did keep learning Visual Basic for many years, from the very basic up to finding a need to call into Win32 api. After .NET was first introduced, I fall in love with C#, it is clean, easy to understand, and powerful, I love this language. When I feel that I can make a living by providing C# based solution, I started a company to do so. The business is still doing fine at this point.
I started a business that needed a database and application so set to it. Up until then computers had just been a hobby.
"If you think it's expensive to hire a professional to do the job, wait until you hire an amateur." Red Adair. nils illegitimus carborundum me, me, me
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When I was about 13, 1992, one day I can't remember why but I bought a book like "teach yourself c++ in N days", the book ships with a floppy that includes a borland C++ ide, I follow the instruction line by line to install the ide, then copy line by line the sample source code, and had my first Hello World program compiled and run successfully. But honestly, I found myself can't actually understand what pointer is after reading the pointer chapters over and over for N times, so I gave up, in fact at that time, I don't even know what I was doing, what is compiling, what is linking, what is parsing, I have no idea, to me, I just write some code, then press a button, wow, I have a running program! Later I move to Visual Basic, I found that for people who first learn to program, having an immediate visual respond is really a big plus and encouragement to keep learning. I did keep learning Visual Basic for many years, from the very basic up to finding a need to call into Win32 api. After .NET was first introduced, I fall in love with C#, it is clean, easy to understand, and powerful, I love this language. When I feel that I can make a living by providing C# based solution, I started a company to do so. The business is still doing fine at this point.
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Yeah, you either get pointers or you don't. There's no "in-between" there. Not a big deal though. At least on Windows platforms, a large majority of people write decent code without ever explicitly using pointers (or with minimal pointer usage).
Regards, Nish
Are you addicted to CP? If so, check this out: The Code Project Forum Analyzer : Find out how much of a life you don't have! My technology blog: voidnish.wordpress.com
I miss pointers and all the other fun stuff in C++... Most of my time goes with C# now, and it SOOO boring :( Last week I had to make a small C++ project, and I remembered why programming was so much fun.
- Anders
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It's such a shame that it all went downhill for you since then. ;P
Forgive your enemies - it messes with their heads
My blog | My articles | MoXAML PowerToys | Mole 2010 - debugging made easier - my favourite utility
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And ever since then, something else has rained down upon your head.
Forgive your enemies - it messes with their heads
My blog | My articles | MoXAML PowerToys | Mole 2010 - debugging made easier - my favourite utility
Ah, fond memories. The good old Mushroom Framework.
Henry Minute Do not read medical books! You could die of a misprint. - Mark Twain Girl: (staring) "Why do you need an icy cucumber?" “I want to report a fraud. The government is lying to us all.” I wouldn't let CG touch my Abacus! When you're wrestling a gorilla, you don't stop when you're tired, you stop when the gorilla is.
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i applied for the job and got it. and at that moment, the sky split open, golden light poured down upon my head, and i became a Professional Programmer.
Chris Losinger wrote:
golden light
Is that what you kids call it these days?
Chris Maunder wrote:
Fixign now.
But who's fixing the fixign?
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When I was about 13, 1992, one day I can't remember why but I bought a book like "teach yourself c++ in N days", the book ships with a floppy that includes a borland C++ ide, I follow the instruction line by line to install the ide, then copy line by line the sample source code, and had my first Hello World program compiled and run successfully. But honestly, I found myself can't actually understand what pointer is after reading the pointer chapters over and over for N times, so I gave up, in fact at that time, I don't even know what I was doing, what is compiling, what is linking, what is parsing, I have no idea, to me, I just write some code, then press a button, wow, I have a running program! Later I move to Visual Basic, I found that for people who first learn to program, having an immediate visual respond is really a big plus and encouragement to keep learning. I did keep learning Visual Basic for many years, from the very basic up to finding a need to call into Win32 api. After .NET was first introduced, I fall in love with C#, it is clean, easy to understand, and powerful, I love this language. When I feel that I can make a living by providing C# based solution, I started a company to do so. The business is still doing fine at this point.
I had this crazy idea of what programming was back in high school. Took a programming class (9th or 10th grade), which smashed that concept, but presented an equally fantastic activity. Didn't care much for VB, so I spent a great amount of my free time in QuickBasic. You are right; it was all about the immediate visual feedback. Programming for fun kept me occupied for years, and I was one of the lucky ones who knew exactly what major he wanted to persue in college (computer science). My first year in college, I got a federal work study job (paying a whopping $8/hour) making a website for the humanities department of my college.
Chris Maunder wrote:
Fixign now.
But who's fixing the fixign?
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When I was about 13, 1992, one day I can't remember why but I bought a book like "teach yourself c++ in N days", the book ships with a floppy that includes a borland C++ ide, I follow the instruction line by line to install the ide, then copy line by line the sample source code, and had my first Hello World program compiled and run successfully. But honestly, I found myself can't actually understand what pointer is after reading the pointer chapters over and over for N times, so I gave up, in fact at that time, I don't even know what I was doing, what is compiling, what is linking, what is parsing, I have no idea, to me, I just write some code, then press a button, wow, I have a running program! Later I move to Visual Basic, I found that for people who first learn to program, having an immediate visual respond is really a big plus and encouragement to keep learning. I did keep learning Visual Basic for many years, from the very basic up to finding a need to call into Win32 api. After .NET was first introduced, I fall in love with C#, it is clean, easy to understand, and powerful, I love this language. When I feel that I can make a living by providing C# based solution, I started a company to do so. The business is still doing fine at this point.
.jpg wrote:
I fall in love with C#, it is clean, easy to understand, and powerful, I love this language.
I don't understand how anybody can "love" languages like C# (or VB or Java). Sure, it pays the bills, but it is boring and verbose. Of all languages I've worked with C# is the least joyful - I prefer even "ugly" languages like Perl and JavaScript.
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When I was about 13, 1992, one day I can't remember why but I bought a book like "teach yourself c++ in N days", the book ships with a floppy that includes a borland C++ ide, I follow the instruction line by line to install the ide, then copy line by line the sample source code, and had my first Hello World program compiled and run successfully. But honestly, I found myself can't actually understand what pointer is after reading the pointer chapters over and over for N times, so I gave up, in fact at that time, I don't even know what I was doing, what is compiling, what is linking, what is parsing, I have no idea, to me, I just write some code, then press a button, wow, I have a running program! Later I move to Visual Basic, I found that for people who first learn to program, having an immediate visual respond is really a big plus and encouragement to keep learning. I did keep learning Visual Basic for many years, from the very basic up to finding a need to call into Win32 api. After .NET was first introduced, I fall in love with C#, it is clean, easy to understand, and powerful, I love this language. When I feel that I can make a living by providing C# based solution, I started a company to do so. The business is still doing fine at this point.
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When I was about 13, 1992, one day I can't remember why but I bought a book like "teach yourself c++ in N days", the book ships with a floppy that includes a borland C++ ide, I follow the instruction line by line to install the ide, then copy line by line the sample source code, and had my first Hello World program compiled and run successfully. But honestly, I found myself can't actually understand what pointer is after reading the pointer chapters over and over for N times, so I gave up, in fact at that time, I don't even know what I was doing, what is compiling, what is linking, what is parsing, I have no idea, to me, I just write some code, then press a button, wow, I have a running program! Later I move to Visual Basic, I found that for people who first learn to program, having an immediate visual respond is really a big plus and encouragement to keep learning. I did keep learning Visual Basic for many years, from the very basic up to finding a need to call into Win32 api. After .NET was first introduced, I fall in love with C#, it is clean, easy to understand, and powerful, I love this language. When I feel that I can make a living by providing C# based solution, I started a company to do so. The business is still doing fine at this point.
Accidentally fell into CS at university (was studying EE at the time), fell in love with programming, and made that my career after graduating. There's nothing else in life I'd rather do than build software. /ravi
My new year resolution: 2048 x 1536 Home | Articles | My .NET bits | Freeware ravib(at)ravib(dot)com
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When I was about 13, 1992, one day I can't remember why but I bought a book like "teach yourself c++ in N days", the book ships with a floppy that includes a borland C++ ide, I follow the instruction line by line to install the ide, then copy line by line the sample source code, and had my first Hello World program compiled and run successfully. But honestly, I found myself can't actually understand what pointer is after reading the pointer chapters over and over for N times, so I gave up, in fact at that time, I don't even know what I was doing, what is compiling, what is linking, what is parsing, I have no idea, to me, I just write some code, then press a button, wow, I have a running program! Later I move to Visual Basic, I found that for people who first learn to program, having an immediate visual respond is really a big plus and encouragement to keep learning. I did keep learning Visual Basic for many years, from the very basic up to finding a need to call into Win32 api. After .NET was first introduced, I fall in love with C#, it is clean, easy to understand, and powerful, I love this language. When I feel that I can make a living by providing C# based solution, I started a company to do so. The business is still doing fine at this point.
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When I was about 13, 1992, one day I can't remember why but I bought a book like "teach yourself c++ in N days", the book ships with a floppy that includes a borland C++ ide, I follow the instruction line by line to install the ide, then copy line by line the sample source code, and had my first Hello World program compiled and run successfully. But honestly, I found myself can't actually understand what pointer is after reading the pointer chapters over and over for N times, so I gave up, in fact at that time, I don't even know what I was doing, what is compiling, what is linking, what is parsing, I have no idea, to me, I just write some code, then press a button, wow, I have a running program! Later I move to Visual Basic, I found that for people who first learn to program, having an immediate visual respond is really a big plus and encouragement to keep learning. I did keep learning Visual Basic for many years, from the very basic up to finding a need to call into Win32 api. After .NET was first introduced, I fall in love with C#, it is clean, easy to understand, and powerful, I love this language. When I feel that I can make a living by providing C# based solution, I started a company to do so. The business is still doing fine at this point.
After doing my tour in the military, I wasn't in the mood for hearing incompetent people telling me what to do, eg. not interested in returning to school. Being good at three things; * Dogs, not much of a market those days. * Blowing stuff up, not much of a market there either. * Programming, there was a large market and they were prepared to pay me :omg: So, still doing it 29 years later :cool: (and working with dogs on the side :laugh: and occasionally blowing stuff up :-D )
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When I was about 13, 1992, one day I can't remember why but I bought a book like "teach yourself c++ in N days", the book ships with a floppy that includes a borland C++ ide, I follow the instruction line by line to install the ide, then copy line by line the sample source code, and had my first Hello World program compiled and run successfully. But honestly, I found myself can't actually understand what pointer is after reading the pointer chapters over and over for N times, so I gave up, in fact at that time, I don't even know what I was doing, what is compiling, what is linking, what is parsing, I have no idea, to me, I just write some code, then press a button, wow, I have a running program! Later I move to Visual Basic, I found that for people who first learn to program, having an immediate visual respond is really a big plus and encouragement to keep learning. I did keep learning Visual Basic for many years, from the very basic up to finding a need to call into Win32 api. After .NET was first introduced, I fall in love with C#, it is clean, easy to understand, and powerful, I love this language. When I feel that I can make a living by providing C# based solution, I started a company to do so. The business is still doing fine at this point.
Actually, I'm a professional smartass. I have a coffee cup on my desk to prove it.
Software Zen:
delete this; -
When I was about 13, 1992, one day I can't remember why but I bought a book like "teach yourself c++ in N days", the book ships with a floppy that includes a borland C++ ide, I follow the instruction line by line to install the ide, then copy line by line the sample source code, and had my first Hello World program compiled and run successfully. But honestly, I found myself can't actually understand what pointer is after reading the pointer chapters over and over for N times, so I gave up, in fact at that time, I don't even know what I was doing, what is compiling, what is linking, what is parsing, I have no idea, to me, I just write some code, then press a button, wow, I have a running program! Later I move to Visual Basic, I found that for people who first learn to program, having an immediate visual respond is really a big plus and encouragement to keep learning. I did keep learning Visual Basic for many years, from the very basic up to finding a need to call into Win32 api. After .NET was first introduced, I fall in love with C#, it is clean, easy to understand, and powerful, I love this language. When I feel that I can make a living by providing C# based solution, I started a company to do so. The business is still doing fine at this point.
Genetics. Pop was a programmer in the '60s. Just natural to go into the family business as my younger brother did as well. You are here - through no fault of mine!
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I miss pointers and all the other fun stuff in C++... Most of my time goes with C# now, and it SOOO boring :( Last week I had to make a small C++ project, and I remembered why programming was so much fun.
- Anders
You masochist you! :laugh:
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When I was about 13, 1992, one day I can't remember why but I bought a book like "teach yourself c++ in N days", the book ships with a floppy that includes a borland C++ ide, I follow the instruction line by line to install the ide, then copy line by line the sample source code, and had my first Hello World program compiled and run successfully. But honestly, I found myself can't actually understand what pointer is after reading the pointer chapters over and over for N times, so I gave up, in fact at that time, I don't even know what I was doing, what is compiling, what is linking, what is parsing, I have no idea, to me, I just write some code, then press a button, wow, I have a running program! Later I move to Visual Basic, I found that for people who first learn to program, having an immediate visual respond is really a big plus and encouragement to keep learning. I did keep learning Visual Basic for many years, from the very basic up to finding a need to call into Win32 api. After .NET was first introduced, I fall in love with C#, it is clean, easy to understand, and powerful, I love this language. When I feel that I can make a living by providing C# based solution, I started a company to do so. The business is still doing fine at this point.
In the middle of my studies for el. engineering degree I had compulsory course Basics of programming. It was mostly in C, with only later part in C++, and I liked it. A lot. After few years of playing with programming, I've decided to I should give it a try as professional. Then I've bought .Net 1.1 book, after six months I was on probation as junior programmer. Within three months I had to catch up with "big boys"... today I boast as professional developer. I've never ever regretted my decision to make career in something different than electrotechnics and I firmly believe it is the best job in the world. At least for me. :-D
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When I was about 13, 1992, one day I can't remember why but I bought a book like "teach yourself c++ in N days", the book ships with a floppy that includes a borland C++ ide, I follow the instruction line by line to install the ide, then copy line by line the sample source code, and had my first Hello World program compiled and run successfully. But honestly, I found myself can't actually understand what pointer is after reading the pointer chapters over and over for N times, so I gave up, in fact at that time, I don't even know what I was doing, what is compiling, what is linking, what is parsing, I have no idea, to me, I just write some code, then press a button, wow, I have a running program! Later I move to Visual Basic, I found that for people who first learn to program, having an immediate visual respond is really a big plus and encouragement to keep learning. I did keep learning Visual Basic for many years, from the very basic up to finding a need to call into Win32 api. After .NET was first introduced, I fall in love with C#, it is clean, easy to understand, and powerful, I love this language. When I feel that I can make a living by providing C# based solution, I started a company to do so. The business is still doing fine at this point.
Professional, in the sense of actually getting paid to write code. when I was a floor technician back in 93 or so compiling status reports by hand then entering that data into an Excel spreadsheet. I was able to automate the process with VBA, what used take over a day to complete now took 15 minutes. I received a spot award for that, wow! getting paid to type some stuff into a computer? I haven’t looked back since. The best part of it is that it is like getting paid to play. For me at least…
It was broke, so I fixed it.
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When I was about 13, 1992, one day I can't remember why but I bought a book like "teach yourself c++ in N days", the book ships with a floppy that includes a borland C++ ide, I follow the instruction line by line to install the ide, then copy line by line the sample source code, and had my first Hello World program compiled and run successfully. But honestly, I found myself can't actually understand what pointer is after reading the pointer chapters over and over for N times, so I gave up, in fact at that time, I don't even know what I was doing, what is compiling, what is linking, what is parsing, I have no idea, to me, I just write some code, then press a button, wow, I have a running program! Later I move to Visual Basic, I found that for people who first learn to program, having an immediate visual respond is really a big plus and encouragement to keep learning. I did keep learning Visual Basic for many years, from the very basic up to finding a need to call into Win32 api. After .NET was first introduced, I fall in love with C#, it is clean, easy to understand, and powerful, I love this language. When I feel that I can make a living by providing C# based solution, I started a company to do so. The business is still doing fine at this point.
.jpg wrote:
I just write some code, then press a button, wow, I have a running program!
Sounds like my first experience when I was 10-11 (1981) with my first computer, a TI-994/A. They even had a TI magazine (forgot the name of it), where they had games written in hundreds or even thousands of lines of TI-Basic. I would spend whole weekends just typing it in, line-by-line, creating things like bad knock-off versions of space invaders. And, the worst part? The TI-994/A had no hard drive (only 32K of RAM - woo hoo!), so you had to save the programs to, I kid you not, a CASSETTE tape! (remember those?) To make things worse, trying to get all of that hard work back onto the computer from the cassette failed a majority of the time. :doh: But, I loved it, anyway, and to this day still miss my old TI. My big accomplishment ... my first program I wrote myself ... was a continuous loop that rapidly changed the color of the screen (i.e. a strobe light!). Those big monitors would light up a whole room. Turned off the lights and had strobes of different colors. Red worked the best (besides white, of course). All those hours in a strobe filled room ... that must explain a few things about me! :omg:
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When I was about 13, 1992, one day I can't remember why but I bought a book like "teach yourself c++ in N days", the book ships with a floppy that includes a borland C++ ide, I follow the instruction line by line to install the ide, then copy line by line the sample source code, and had my first Hello World program compiled and run successfully. But honestly, I found myself can't actually understand what pointer is after reading the pointer chapters over and over for N times, so I gave up, in fact at that time, I don't even know what I was doing, what is compiling, what is linking, what is parsing, I have no idea, to me, I just write some code, then press a button, wow, I have a running program! Later I move to Visual Basic, I found that for people who first learn to program, having an immediate visual respond is really a big plus and encouragement to keep learning. I did keep learning Visual Basic for many years, from the very basic up to finding a need to call into Win32 api. After .NET was first introduced, I fall in love with C#, it is clean, easy to understand, and powerful, I love this language. When I feel that I can make a living by providing C# based solution, I started a company to do so. The business is still doing fine at this point.
I started back in 73 (I was 14) on an ASR-33 connected to an HP-2000 via accoustic coupler. I learned pointers while taking an Assembly class at Control Data Institute. I had over-written my Base Pointer for my project. Once the instructor explained what I had done, I had a much better idea of what they were and how they were used. Needless to say, these days, many programmers don't understand them (and don't have to with the tools available today). The nuts and bolts of my assembly days are no longer necessary learning. I guess I'm old.
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When I was about 13, 1992, one day I can't remember why but I bought a book like "teach yourself c++ in N days", the book ships with a floppy that includes a borland C++ ide, I follow the instruction line by line to install the ide, then copy line by line the sample source code, and had my first Hello World program compiled and run successfully. But honestly, I found myself can't actually understand what pointer is after reading the pointer chapters over and over for N times, so I gave up, in fact at that time, I don't even know what I was doing, what is compiling, what is linking, what is parsing, I have no idea, to me, I just write some code, then press a button, wow, I have a running program! Later I move to Visual Basic, I found that for people who first learn to program, having an immediate visual respond is really a big plus and encouragement to keep learning. I did keep learning Visual Basic for many years, from the very basic up to finding a need to call into Win32 api. After .NET was first introduced, I fall in love with C#, it is clean, easy to understand, and powerful, I love this language. When I feel that I can make a living by providing C# based solution, I started a company to do so. The business is still doing fine at this point.
I was a professional studio photographer. I did all that dabbling in darkrooms stuff, retouching my transparencies on a light box with dyes and bleaches. Things started going digital and I saw my first copy of Adobe Photoshop. Things that took me hours on a light box could be done in seconds, and better still, if I screwed it up I could just hit 'UNDO'... I was hooked! I wanted to know what else these things were capable of, and found (to my amazement) that if I just read this book they could do whatever I wanted them to. The book in question was "C: A Dabhand Guide". I did a bit of shareware stuff to start with, and got invited by a mate of mine to write a bit of software to handle images for an image library in High Holbourn (REX Features). Got given a Mac and a copy of Metrowerks CodeWarrior - The rest is history...