How did you start programming/scripting?

[Bemk]

I know this thread might have some things in common with the how did you get started in Linux thread, but I think it doesn't cover the programming subject.

So I'm just curious how you got started. Below is my personal story.

When I was about 9 I got a laptop from my fathers work (old thing, which was of no use to anyone). It was one of the earlier Thinkpads and ran Windows 95.

When the hard disk broke down I could still use it through a DOS boot disk, and since I was doing al sorts of batch scripts (and my father was cleaning up the attic) he decided to give me this floppy with GWBasic and some books, along with some advice.

I soon got working with basic and had loads of fun, but found my self limited by my environment. Around this time (remember, I was 10 or so) I started thinking about building my own operating system.

When I got to secondary school I found my self purchasing a laptop (which I thought at the time was a good one) and I found out about MS Visual Studio Express release, and got started with the best documented language, which was Visual Basic.

It taught me some of the basic program flows and things but it too didn't really allow me to do the things I wanted.

I then got started in Linux, which can be read in the how did you get started in Linux thread and during this transition I also started to do some C programming.

Like so many others, I too had issues with pointers, but that didn't slow down my progress, as I just learnt the rules by heart and continued doing these small projects for my self.

Now I knew how C worked I started looking at my dream of building my own OS again, and found out that to do so, one would need to know some assembly first, as setting the CPU to the required setting would be essential.

When cleaning up my room I found some notes I made at school from the period where I started doing assembly. I wrote them on pieces of paper as I didn't have a computer to do these things.

By this time I was getting ready for the 5th year of secondary school (was 16 years old by that time) and started focussing more on my final exams, and as a result didn't have much time to spend on the OS.

I passed my exams with flying colours and got back to the dream of building the OS. A friend with whom I've been talking about it recommended the James Molloy tutorial and so we started.
Then, at university there were so many new impressions I just had to stop and focus more on what I needed to be doing, but at around Christmas I started work on what would be the basis for Orion

I stopped again once the holidays were over, and decided to give the OS a new go, starting again from scratch and on the 7th of March 2011, I made the first commit in the project that now is Orion.

In the mean time, at secondary school there were some Java exercises, which were too easy for me, so I started doing some other things, and at university I still knew too much of programming to make the first year really interesting.

Next year we'll be looking into C#, so I guess that's where things will get interesting.

And that's where we are now.
Hope you liked the story, and hope you will tell us how you started out.

[alf55]

Well in 1971, the high school that I attended had an HP-2116C computer that students used in our 4 computer classes. I was not in any of the classes, but they offered an "intro" bag lunch (during the time that the cafeteria was open in the tower, so I attended a session. In the session we got 50 computer cards that could be marked with a number 2 pencil (rather than a key punch) and was given and introduction to ALGOL. I wrote my first program that used 13 of the computer cards. Before the week was over I had bought another 200 cards. Before the month was over, I was working for the math department doing different computer related stuff. If the computer was shut down for a service check we had to load the OS from a paper tape which took 34 minutes through the TTY-10. Later in the year we got a high speed tape reader and the start-up time dropped to a couple of minutes; however the rewinding of the paper tape still 20-25 minutes. In 1974, I finally took one of the computer classes being offered and had to program in basic there was only 260 numeric variables and another 260 variables that were string variables. When on to college to study EE and computer science. Worked for 21 years developing electrical cad software for EE customers before that area seemed to get capped. Been doing web stuff since spring of 1993. Been using UNIX since 1976 and Linux since the kernel was at 0.98. I remember in 1985 getting the new version of "X" that had color support and had to get a new monitor to use the 256 colors. I had a 50MB hard drive on a UNIX machine when the PC (PC-DOS and MS-DOS) world got 5MB hard drives. Been doing software development since 1971 and used more programming languages than can be counted in binary with seven fingers.

[Bemk]

So I guess the newbie status doesn't really reflect the person behind the account.

[elija]

In the early 1980s, my maths teacher bought a ZX81 into the class and demonstrated it solving equations. How it did it was more interesting to me than the equations themselves.

I got a Commodore Vic 20 for my birthday and the manual was all about programing it. I still remember the sense of achievement when I got the concept of a loop! And when I realised that the (apparently) random letters and numbers in the games you could buy on tape (which took 10 minutes to load, if they didn't fail!) were the program, there was a sense of awe. I learnt how to program my Vic in machine code.

At school we had Commodore PETs and one BBC B which we got to write a few small programs for in BASIC in the second year of computer appreciation.

I progressed through a Comodore 64 to an Atrai ST and STe then to a Windows 95 PC. through Windows 2000, XP and finally Linux learning to program them all, in languages as diverse as BASIC, Machine code, 68000 Assembler and Pascal. I even played with POVRay which lets you program raytraceable images.

Professionally, I started programming an IBM System 38 using RPG II and III and CL, moving through IBM AS/400 machines with RPG II and IV with CL and openqueryf, which was what we had before SQL came about. I moved in to web development using VBScript and Javascript and progressed through .net with C# and PHP.

I am currently attempting to teach myself C just for fun.

My favourite language of all time would have to be HiSoft BASIC on the Atari ST(e). It was fully compiled and a hugely powerful language which also allowed linking with 68000 assembler routines where it wasn't fast enough.

[hazel]

For me it started when BRE Library got a Prime computer. It stood in a back room (it was a huge beast which you booted by setting switches on the front panel) and I and a colleague were put there to keep it company.

He taught me some Basic and I wrote a program to calculate the length of the hypotenuse of a right-angled triangle, and then one to convert centigrade into fahrenheit and vice versa. I got hooked straight away; I was awed by the idea of actually being able to order a computer around. It made me feel like God.

I progressed to Fortran77, then to Pascal. I started with C soon after starting Linux. What set me off was the documentation on libraries like gtk; I'd never dreamed of being able to write a graphical program but the gtk tutorial made it seem reasonable to try.

It's addictive, isn't it! You start with Basic and that's like smoking pot, then before you know it you're on the hard stuff.

[elija]

Oh my god! I've just found Lazarus (Lazarus), an IDE for Free Pascal. I really wish I'd found that before I started learning C. It kind of reminds me of Delphi from Borland so I'm going to have to check it out. Delphi (Object Pascal) was a language I wanted to get into but couldn't afford to buy the compiler / IDE.

[Bemk]

Actually been looking at Pascal, but I personally don't like it. I don't like the syntax and there are some grammar issues with the language, for it feels like one could use an assembler with huge amounts of macro's to compile the language.

But one could argue the same of C of course, so my issues are more a matter of personal opinion than anything else really.

[Rubberman]

Let's see - about 45 years ago - Fortran IV in engineering school.