I saw this meme floating around the development community and thought it was a fun one.  Clint Edmonson has called me on it so I’m going to give it a shot.

How old were you when you started programming?

My first experience with programming was on the Atari XE.  I was around 8 or 9 when my dad and I went through the manual and followed the line by line instructions to build a program that displayed an American flag waving in the wind.  I learned a lot about the Basic language and it kind of stuck with me.  I didn’t do much programming after that unless you count the magic of format C: in Dos 6.  Most of my computer experience during my teens was on the fix broken ones side.

What languages have you used since you started programming?

I haven’t strayed far from languages who have a lineage with basic.  In college I started as a Computer Science major but I did not like the prospect of intensive math.  I was exposed to C++ there which I enjoyed but was looking at switching to Management Information Systems.  If you’ve read my bio then you’ll know during those college years I had a battle with cancer a few times that took me on some interesting paths.  When it all settled I went back for my MIS degree where I spent time with VB 6, VB.NET, and SQL.  I’ve also touched on PHP, Java Script, and even Java (which I now respect a lot more than I did a few years back).

What was your first professional programming gig?

My first gig probably isn’t as interesting as the path that got me there.  When I worked for Lewis & Clark Library System I started as a PC technician.  Most of my IT background through college was working for Internet providers and a few LAN gaming centers.  At LCLS they had a lot of IT needs and I had a lot of jobs I could do.  I bounced from a traveling PC tech to a server admin, security guy, and also the web master.  After getting through my battle with cancer I had an opportunity to choose a path.  We wanted to make our web site dynamic so I dove right in and started with ASP (we had Microsoft servers) and MS Access database on the back end.  From there my journey into development really took off.  I became the full time web master and eventually changed the title to Internet Application Developer.

If you knew then what you know now, would you have started programming?

I would have started sooner and studied more languages.  I’ve been pretty vertical in my language market and would have liked to have been more multilingual.  I would have also studied object oriented a lot more thoroughly to fully understand the concepts that drive it.

If there is one thing you learned along the way that you would tell new developers, what would it be?

Study development outside the context of a language if possible.  I have been struggling to unhinge myself from language centric development into the broader realm of software design outside of a specific language.  This is difficult to do when you’re grounded in a language.

What’s the most fun you’ve ever had … programming?

Those first experiences where you spend minutes or hours typing away and then tell the program to run and watch it work are the best.  Once you get past that programming is still a lot of fun but the challenges change and so do the motivations.  That feeling of watching it work is always there and I think that is the big draw for me.  Programming is a lot like art.  Prior to my development life I spent a lot of time writing and drawing.  I don’t do as much of that with pen and paper, but I’d like to think of my development as an art form and it’s satisfying to see your work out in the field helping people do their job.

Who am I Calling Out?

The people I want to call out do not blog (that I know of).  Which is too bad.  I don’t want to end this meme but sadly I have to for now.