On Thu, 03 Mar 2005 16:14:02 -0400, Will The Game <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > I just wanted to try and gauge where I'm at right now in terms of programming
Sorry for the late bump, but I just came across this thread. I was reading and writing at age three and had my first exposure to computers at that age when I was in preschool (a Ti 99). My parents bought me one of those (my dad had been using Digital computers since the late 70's at that time).. then an Apple IIe when I was in First Grade. Finally in 3rd Grade I started teaching myself AppleBasic.. moved to a hand-me-down IBM 286 AT in 5th Grade and continued doing BASIC as well as batch files. Around age 10 or 11 I wrote a completely menu driven system to uncompress applications at runtime and then recompressed changed application data when an application ended on my 286 because my 20 MB hard drive was too small. I kept messing around in BASIC, batching, and Logo until early High School when I started to play around in "Turbo" C++ and a language similar to C++ called Synapps. I mostly wrote, uhh, well, innocent viruses that propagated through my High School's network but would clean themselves up and disappear after a couple of days. Mostly they just did really innocent things like disable the mouse input for about 30 seconds every 45 minutes and give error messages like "Computer is halting to let mouse cool, please standby". I think I had more fun writing the code to install and propagate the virus then clean itself-up and disappear than anything else (it was very stealthy and cool for the time period, IMHO); I've never really been malicious, but I did find people's reactions rather humorous. :) I also setup a BBS for the High School and eventually helped setup a proxy with 2 modems which served as an access point to the net for the school. I grew-up in a VERY rural area, so all things considered it was pretty advanced at the time. Once the web came around and I found messing around in Mosaic much more impressive that Gopher and BBS's, I got really interested in HTML, graphics, etc. which was my entry into the web and playing with HTML in late 94 or so. I'd also done a lot of sketching and so forth growing-up, so getting my hands on a copy of Photoshop really fascinated me. In 1997 I started getting fascinated with Unix, Linux and FreeBSD after graduating High School and spending too much time messing around on IRC. I started college, but left after a semester because the whole internet thing was too lucrative, and I didn't feel like I was learning much. I didn't really get back into programming again until I started playing around with ColdFusion in 1998 or so when I was a Graphic Designer at a small web company. By 2000 I was working as a full-time CF Developer. >From 2000 until now I've played around in Java, Python, and PHP for the most part, not to mention ColdFusion. I also started going to college on and off again.. lately I've been going very regularly and have learned C, Assembly, UML, I start a Java class tomorrow, and C++ in a couple of months, etc. I should graduate before too long with a CS Degree and am about 90% sure I'll be doing grad school as well provided my GPA stays up and I can get accepted. Post grad school I see myself working towards a Software Architect type role or perhaps some sort of R&D, but that's still quite a ways off. I somewhat regret messing around so long and taking so long to do my undergrad, but at the same time I really appreciate what I'm learning and have a much better understanding of what it takes to be a good software developer, as well as have a good bearing on what I want to do with my career. In the beginning of the web career I really struggled in deciding which way to go because I could make a living doing graphic design, or sys admin, or programming, but realized I enjoy writing software the most of the three. I mean I find myself reading books like "The Art of Unix Programming" and "Code Complete" for fun.. yikes! And honestly it was the joy of programming in CFMX that really sealed the deal for me on wanting to really focus on being a software developer. So that's the long answer... the short being I've been programming for around 18 years, and doing ColdFusion for almost 7 years. - Brandon -- ---------------------------------- http://devnulled.com ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~| Find out how CFTicket can increase your company's customer support efficiency by 100% http://www.houseoffusion.com/banners/view.cfm?bannerid=49 Message: http://www.houseoffusion.com/lists.cfm/link=i:4:197643 Archives: http://www.houseoffusion.com/cf_lists/threads.cfm/4 Subscription: http://www.houseoffusion.com/lists.cfm/link=s:4 Unsubscribe: http://www.houseoffusion.com/cf_lists/unsubscribe.cfm?user=89.70.4 Donations & Support: http://www.houseoffusion.com/tiny.cfm/54
