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How did you get into programming?

Author:

Mackie [ Fri Feb 01, 2008 12:47 am ]

Post subject:

How did you get into programming?

It's a general question. What event, person, etc. Got you interested in programming in the first place and when?

Not necessarily my most significant moment, but defiantly sparked my interest. In grade 3 or 4, Neopets was all the rage. So I was just hanging out on Neopets when I came accross there profiles. SO I was like OMG you can MAKE websites! (I was stupid). They used HTML, and had a tutorial on it. So I looked into it and learned things like:

code:

After that I kept asking questions like, where are the websites? Oh whats a server? How can I get one? etc.

I learned more HTML, CSS, Lua, PHP, Turing, VB, Ruby, Python (Not in that order). And I'm still going.

That's my story. Please share yours!

Author:	btiffin [ Fri Feb 01, 2008 3:07 am ]
Post subject:	Re: How did you get into programming?
I was born for it. Took all my money from working on a fish tug and bought me a TRS/80 Model I. I was 16ish. While learning the BASIC that came with the machine (took all of an afternoon) I picked up TASM, Z-80 assembler. But it needed a better debugger than T-BUG so I started to write my own. 16K of RAM. My debugger could load into high or low hence Debug HILO. That got me sent to the first ever Canada Wide Computer Science Fair in 1982. Then it was off to Waterloo for my first ever real programming class. (We didn't have any computers in my high-school until my last year and that was a typing course and a lot of Space Invaders - I got to spend my time writing a student database for my electronics teacher). At Waterloo it was COBOL, Pascal and 6809 assembler courses. On the side I've taught myself Fortran, Ada, SNOBOL, Icon, Unicon, Forth, awk, shell, TCL/Tk, DCL, JCL, Modula-2 and 3, Oberon, Python, Sather, Eiffel, C, C++, Java, APL, J, R, D, Dylan, Limbo, Hypercard, REXX, BLISS, quite a few assemblers, quite a few BASICs, a few of the markups (SGML, XML, HTML/CSS), Lisp, Scheme, dBASE II, PL/SQL, Prolog, Erlang, LUA, Ruby, IBI FOCUS, Factor, Joy, OCaml, Pike, Smalltalk, Squeak, Haskell, Io, ECMAScript (Javascript), Logo, Maple, Matlab, and a few others. But the quest ended at REBOL. Well, since being here, maybe I'll try coding up an app in Turing, but my search for the best language ended with REBOL. I didn't really get into programming, programming got into me. When I'm bored I open a debugger and try hand assembly, or used to, before the web. <vent> Growing up I was a Microsoft evangelist, but booted up Coherent more often than not ... then MS laughed as they killed OS/2 while promising "Chicago" (Windows 95) for like 3 years, so now I'm agin 'em. GNU/Linux makes a far better development environment anyway and I now like to promote OSS and value added commercial endeavours. I'd never pirate, but I'm somewhat glad that the largest theft base in the world is Microsoft products. Good on them. I really do hope that there is a huge crackdown someday soon, GNU/Linux stands ready. If all the people that stole MS/Office were told they'd go to prison for theft over, I can only assume that OpenOffice would rule. But I do miss OS/2. It would have been great and by now we would be talking to our computers (and they would be singing back) instead of us getting carpal tunnel and BSOD. </vent> Cheers, Brian Tiffin

Author:	zylum [ Fri Feb 01, 2008 4:22 am ]
Post subject:	Re: How did you get into programming?
Well I grew up playing sports and video games. One day in grade 9 I got this idea in my head that I would start making my own games. So I went to the local chapters and picked up a book on game design in flash. Although theres lots of animation you can do in flash, I spent most of my time learning how to program in Actionscript. My foray into Actionscript lead to stuff like this, this and this. In grade 10 I was introduced to Turing through my programming class. Because of Turing's speed advantage compared to (at the time) Flash's Actionscript as well as its easy to program graphics, I quickly forgot about Flash. This is when I really started programming. I spent hours a day doing all sorts of experiments many of which are posted throughout the forums. In grade 11 I was told about the CCC, so I started training. I looked for resources on the web for algorithm competitions and found TopCoder.com. Since (at the time) TopCoder only supported C/C++, Java and VB I decided to learn Java. Thus throughout grades 11-12 I spent most of my time learning Java/various algorithms and working on personal projects in Turing. TopCoder was definitely a great learning experience for me. After doing it for a few months I found I would write more concise and bug free code as their competitions promoted speed and accuracy. I am quite competitive, so to learn faster I convinced some of my friends to do TopCoder with me. Matches are held about once a week so we'd spend many hours studying the algorithms. When the competition came, I always had a heightened pulse as adrenaline was racing through my veins. TopCoder was a lot of fun but I haven't done it in ages Now I am in University which takes up a lot of my time, so I don't program casually as much as I would like. The benefit is that I get to learn a lot of great languages I might not have learned on my own such as C/C++, Python, Scheme, ML, Prolog, Perl... I still do work on personal projects, but they are more complex and take longer to complete as I have less time to devote to them. Recently, I started learning Actionscript 3.0 as I got this idea I would start my own casual gaming site. I see many games on the internet that are of poor quality that are quite popular and think to my self that I can do a lot better. And this is where my journey leaves off. I look forward to programming for many more years and hopefully make a career of it

Author:	Nick [ Fri Feb 01, 2008 6:16 am ]
Post subject:	RE:How did you get into programming?
I myself started half a year ago (since yesterday it's the exact date) I thought that "computer science" would bo something hardware about the computer so I took the class. When the class started, to my surprise, we did programming, needless to say I was comfused, hawever I was also quite excited. I look back as a happy acident. Also since I was a kid I always had an interset in gaming, I know a lot of people say that but no one was like me (beat the origanal Mario at age 2). When anyone asked me what I wanted to be when I grew up I said "video game maker" (as I said I was young lol). I've since made games, some posted on the site some not. I'm now taking a java course I'm looking forward to ace. I am tring to teach myself Python as well right now. And that my friends, is my story.

Author:	Euphoracle [ Fri Feb 01, 2008 6:52 am ]
Post subject:	RE:How did you get into programming?
I started by doing really dumb stuff in VB6 with a friend, and then he continued to do his stuff in VB6 and I moved on to C#, C++ (hopefully D soon), Java and Turing from school, Lua and other scripting languages. I haven't really done anything major; I still have a lot to learn.

Author:	michaelp [ Fri Feb 01, 2008 9:01 am ]
Post subject:	Re: How did you get into programming?
I wanted to play downloaded games on my PSP... Then I kept learning about the PSP, and there was homebrew. (Games made for the PSP with an unofficial SDK.) I used Luaplayer for the PSP, then decided to go to the PC for programming. I was using C++.

Author:	MichaelM [ Fri Feb 01, 2008 9:59 am ]
Post subject:	Re: How did you get into programming?
I always played viedo games, and of course, got ideas for my own games. I first started in Game Maker, which hardly counts as programming. I also fooled around with Maya alot making wierd animations. Then just last semester I has my first Computer Science Class and learned Turing and thats as far as I've gone so far

Author:	PaulButler [ Fri Feb 01, 2008 4:25 pm ]
Post subject:	RE:How did you get into programming?
I learned the basics of QBASIC at a summer camp when I was 8, and I liked it. My dad knows BASIC, so I had him show me more. I spent a while programming trivial little things in basic, and then I found some C and VB books that my dad had. I didn't really get the hang of C until later, but I managed to teach myself VB.

Author:	Saad [ Fri Feb 01, 2008 4:44 pm ]
Post subject:	RE:How did you get into programming?
I got into programming from my CS class. I really only took it because I needed a credit, and heard interesting stuff about it. But even in CS class I really didn't find it interesting, but after a while there were interesting problems which I couldn't solve and so I came to compsci.ca, and after that I'm hooked.

Author:	A.J [ Fri Feb 01, 2008 5:21 pm ]
Post subject:	Re: How did you get into programming?
I started a couple of months back. I didn't know about programming untill the beginning of this year (grade 10). I heard about this site from saad. And here i am.

Author:	cavetroll [ Sat Feb 02, 2008 1:11 am ]
Post subject:	Re: How did you get into programming?
I got started at the beginning of last year in my comp sci/ business class. I found Turing on the computer and I knew I was going to learn it eventually. I decided I would start early so I could be better than everyone when we started. Turns out it worked. Eventually people found out so I spent like more than half the class away from my own computer. I enjoyed it (the programming not helping people) and continued to more advanced languages.

Author:	PaulButler [ Sat Feb 02, 2008 4:50 pm ]
Post subject:	Re: How did you get into programming?
cavetroll @ Sat Feb 02, 2008 1:11 am wrote: I got started at the beginning of last year in my comp sci/ business class. I found Turing on the computer and I knew I was going to learn it eventually. I decided I would start early so I could be better than everyone when we started. Turns out it worked. Eventually people found out so I spent like more than half the class away from my own computer. I enjoyed it (the programming not helping people) and continued to more advanced languages. Helping other people might be annoying, but I find it's one of the best ways to re-enforce what you know. You might not realize it, but you probably get more out of it than your friends do .

Author:	Mackie [ Sat Feb 02, 2008 5:16 pm ]
Post subject:	RE:How did you get into programming?
Ya, I had the same experience when I started my computer science course in September. I already had quite a bit of programming experience. So I just jumped into Turing like there was no tomorrow. I spend the entire class helping people. Which I didn't mind. Other than I suck at explaining things in simple terms.

Author:	TokenHerbz [ Sat Feb 02, 2008 5:47 pm ]
Post subject:	RE:How did you get into programming?
I started with the most basic several years ago, making UMS maps in starcraft, the idea and concept of creating things under my control was very interesting for me, and in school i learned Java.... Then i learned turing... so thats my story.

Author:	Bored [ Wed Feb 13, 2008 3:53 pm ]
Post subject:	Re: How did you get into programming?
My interest in programming first started at a young, age I'm not sure when. I saw the power of being able to create a program, to make a game, and mostly I wanted to be a Hacker because I thought they were cool, and i had dreams of hacking an FBI database. Anyways those eventually subsided, but it was my Step Brother who really sparked my interest. I used to always see him programming, and often making games, which really intrigued me having been a gamer as far back as I can remember (I had an old Odyssey 2 at age 4). When I was in grade 7 I asked him to show me how to program, he gave me a quick tutorial in BASIC and some websites to look into. My first program was a pokedex which allowed you to input a pokemon and then had 150 if statements that would output the proper data, because that's really all I knew how to do. It would then ask if you wanted to quit and loop back if you didn't. I've been programming ever since, picking up HTML in grade 8 and dabling in python, then Truing in grade 9, and since then I've learnt Ruby, PHP, JavaScript, and C# and I've looked into c++, ASP, and java. Oh Yes I also did some scripting in UT for a while somewhere in there.

Author:	Robert [ Wed Feb 13, 2008 6:57 pm ]
Post subject:	Re: RE:How did you get into programming?
PaulButler @ Fri Feb 01, 2008 4:25 pm wrote: I learned the basics of QBASIC at a summer camp when I was 8, and I liked it. My dad knows BASIC, so I had him show me more. I spent a while programming trivial little things in basic, and then I found some C and VB books that my dad had. I didn't really get the hang of C until later, but I managed to teach myself VB. Similar story here. I found QBasic on my grandfather's old computer when I was around 8 years old, and I just played around with it non stop all summer. The only computer games on his PC were Doom and Doom 2 (my cousins were big into Doom), and I was absolutely terrified of those games, so I decided that I had to make my own. They were all crappy, but the important thing was that I fell in love with programming.

Author:	Ultrahex [ Wed Feb 13, 2008 7:37 pm ]
Post subject:	Re: How did you get into programming?
If i remeber correctly ... i thought a donut was a computer chip... and then i started shocking it making it do weird things ... hence why i got into programming... I think thats how it went down ... or maybe it was website writing and MIRC scripting along with my brain

Author:	ericfourfour [ Wed Feb 13, 2008 10:53 pm ]
Post subject:	RE:How did you get into programming?
I took grade 10 computer science. I didn't even know what it was at the time. It was pretty much luck that I ended up programming. Two things I learned from it: how to type fast and how to program. Now it will always be a hobby.

Author:	jamonathin [ Fri Feb 15, 2008 12:03 pm ]
Post subject:	Re: How did you get into programming?
Starcraft's 'Use Map Settings' Editor did it for me.

Author:	Bobrobyn [ Mon Feb 18, 2008 5:15 pm ]
Post subject:	RE:How did you get into programming?
Amusingly enough, I should be coding right now... I got into it by taking it in grade 10. At the time, all "computer courses" were considered easy, I learned turing....and although some of the concepts were neat, I thought it was generally dumb. So I can move things around the screen, big woop. I ended up failing the class because I was bored and spent all my classes surfing the web. Then, I took Computer Engineering. We had to use BASIC to make motors and stuff run (I don't really remember the details)....but after doing that, I realized that programming can be useful. I took initiative and learned a lot of it on my own, and I ended up being my final project groups coder. Naturally, at the time, I didn't know about indentation, so my code was horrible. I then decided to take grade 11 programming. Grade 10 programming wasn't required to move on to grade 11. The teacher obviously thought I couldn't do it. I then proceeded to get good marks in it (although, I can't remember what they were). After that, I knew that I wanted to go to university for computer science....and now I'm a second year at Guelph, and I'm loving it. Thank goodness I decided to randomly take a "computer course", and then proceed to take another one the next semester. If it wasn't for both of them, I probably wouldn't be here. I'd be in physics or something else that's silly (No offense to physics majors. I still love physics, I just love compsci more.)

Author:	gillen15 [ Sun Mar 23, 2008 12:15 pm ]
Post subject:	RE:How did you get into programming?
I grew up with a very bad computer with no internet on it. All I could do was play the games that my dad created for my family. I soon started programming games with him. Now, I make my own.

Author:	jernst [ Sun Mar 23, 2008 3:59 pm ]
Post subject:	Re: RE:How did you get into programming?
Robert @ Wed Feb 13, 2008 6:57 pm wrote: PaulButler @ Fri Feb 01, 2008 4:25 pm wrote: I learned the basics of QBASIC at a summer camp when I was 8, and I liked it. My dad knows BASIC, so I had him show me more. I spent a while programming trivial little things in basic, and then I found some C and VB books that my dad had. I didn't really get the hang of C until later, but I managed to teach myself VB. Similar story here. I found QBasic on my grandfather's old computer when I was around 8 years old, and I just played around with it non stop all summer. The only computer games on his PC were Doom and Doom 2 (my cousins were big into Doom), and I was absolutely terrified of those games, so I decided that I had to make my own. They were all crappy, but the important thing was that I fell in love with programming. Qbasic got me started also. Begged my parents for my first computer when I was like 10, my mom didnt know anything about them ended up getting me a commadore 64 which sucked hardcore, so I eventually talked her into getting me something decent which ended up being some kind of pentium computer. After I got bored with html and playing video games I found some books at the library for kids to learn programming and one of them was on Qbasic so I started there, took comp sci classes in high school, then went to Laurier for uni and now im doing research at Guelph

Author:	DaveAngus [ Sat Apr 12, 2008 10:46 pm ]
Post subject:	RE:How did you get into programming?
A teacher at my school told me that that was what his favorite thing to do (and he majored in it). I Then told him i couldnt do it because I cant remember anything (terrible memory). And then he said nope your learning it and so I joined his grade 11 comp sci class (in grade 12) and loved it!

Author:	r691175002 [ Sat Apr 12, 2008 11:45 pm ]
Post subject:	Re: How did you get into programming?
Wanted to make flash games so I taught myself action script. I still love that language, but I moved on to Java and C++ for a few years myself before enrolling in computer science 20/30. It is pretty much a cakewalk at this point but I enjoy it.

Author:	OneOffDriveByPoster [ Sun Apr 13, 2008 12:28 am ]
Post subject:	Re: How did you get into programming?
My mother did post-graduate studies in CS. She got disconnected from the industry, but got me all sorts of books and educational videos on computing. I started with QBASIC too (was all I could find on my PC at the time).

Author:	Tallguy [ Mon Apr 14, 2008 8:02 am ]
Post subject:	RE:How did you get into programming?
i got into programming at school, just picked up a keyboard and started making basic programs, found out that i like it, and knida good at it, so here i am

Author:	I Smell Death [ Fri Apr 25, 2008 10:54 am ]
Post subject:	RE:How did you get into programming?
it started with being asked to maintain a website and learning html(ugh...). then i got to grade 9 and learned a bit of VB, next it was Turing, then came a tiny bit of C# and i am finaly starting to move on to C++

Author:	syntax_error [ Fri Apr 25, 2008 8:55 pm ]
Post subject:	RE:How did you get into programming?
I started "programming" about a year ago, due the simple choice of taking BTT101 (learning MS office) or to take TIK201; as I am here, grade nine, pulled me into TIK201, since then its been a great personal task to get better, when I do get time though.

Author:	nike52 [ Fri Apr 25, 2008 9:10 pm ]
Post subject:	Re: How did you get into programming?
Aw, I wish I started programming alot earlier. Anyhow, I'm happy to find doing something I love. My first introduction to programming was gr 10 compsci class. Before that, I used to play around with photoshop and CSS to make websites. Happy times.

Author:	shaon [ Mon Apr 28, 2008 9:24 pm ]
Post subject:	Re: How did you get into programming?
For me I believe, the concepts of comp-sci were imbeded in me far before a ever touched a real programming language. I believe my taste of any sort of programming at all would be the map editor in AOE II. True it isn't a language, but it had your basic flow structure. { Condition -> effect } bundled in triggers which ran in order. No real typing of code was in it, but it did have a sense of logic structure, and I'd stay up late making "custom games" out of AOE II that had like over 1000 triggers (thats like 1000 if statements, map editors now a days aren't as simple for noobs) and I would end up making a game that barely had an RTS element at all and would be more like an RPG or some other genre (I remember tower defence) because I was able to effectively use the tools given to me. That was when I was in grade school (like grades 3-8). When it came time for high school, I got my first test of real programming in Turing. The whole loops/procedures/ if statements came to me naturally (been doing that with AOE II for years...) and I wanted to learn more than my peers. I found this website and like other people here, it helped me move through comp-sci at much faster rate. I'd help people around my class in my free time in order to help iron out some of the more harder concepts for myself. When made my first game (text-based) rock-papper-scissor, it felt good, which was then followed by a poorly coded shooter. After those games, I started making games which are slightly more complex then the one that I would build before it. All at the same time, I'd be setting up some sort of goal system to make sure that I would continue to learn at a rapid pace. I believe I'm still on that track even today (though now it's no longer old Turing, but rather Python, Java and C++/C).

Author:	raidercom [ Tue Apr 29, 2008 8:17 am ]
Post subject:	Re: How did you get into programming?
I'd been messing around with HTML for a while, since about Gr 8, but I never really got into programming, until I hit grade 10, with Computer Science, and Turing. From there, I blew through the courses, grade 10 and 11, where we studied Turing, and a little HTML. Grade 12 was VB, which I disliked, but I had developed my love of programming. During my college learning, we studied ASP, PHP and shell scripting for Windows and Linux, which I loved doing, and I'm still programming today, mainly in PHP though.

Author:	Insectoid [ Thu May 15, 2008 6:36 pm ]
Post subject:	RE:How did you get into programming?
I got pissed off at the guys at computer repair for charging so much, so I decided, hey, why not learn to do this myself? So I took (and am taking) Gr.10 computer science and computer engineering and found that programming is fun! Oh...april 29 huh? I guess this is a little late...

Author:	nastynika [ Fri May 16, 2008 8:27 am ]
Post subject:	Re: How did you get into programming?
my uncle started teaching me stuff about computers since i was 8 and i have loved computers ever simce so most stuff now i learn on my own

Author:	Steven Toews [ Fri May 16, 2008 1:06 pm ]
Post subject:	Re: How did you get into programming?
It all started back when Neopets' shops were around... where you had the option to code them yourself with HTML. Thats when I learned, taught myself everything I know with E-Books and am starting to take courses with more advanced languages. That was probably when I was 8-10?

Author:	Zren [ Fri May 16, 2008 5:19 pm ]
Post subject:	Re: How did you get into programming?
Got addicted to video games through Asteroids. Was taught simple HTML in Gr 6. Explored into Javascript from there. Was introduced to Turing in Gr 9. Expanded it in Grade 10.

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