RSSSoftware Development Q & A
Feb 02
Here are some Software Development questions:
How old were you when you started programming? I was 16 when I had my first exposure in school. 21 when I had my first job writing a utility for a project.
How did you get started in programming? I took a night class at IBM and and loved the challenge of looking at problems and solving them.
What was your first language? Wrote a modem communications program in C Language. What was the first real program you wrote?
At Apple I wrote a test program that tested all the printer commands but the second version was much more advanced testing modem functionality which got me into Modem Communications where I worked on a few Modem Application for some smaller startups.
What languages have you used since you started programming? Think Pascal & C; Turbo C/C++; MPW Pascal & C/C++; CodeWarrior C/C++; NewtonScript; Visual Studio Basic, C/C++; Perl, Flash ActionScript; Eclipse Java; Xcode C, C++, Objective-C
What was your first professional programming gig? I left Apple Computers as a Permanent employee to work at a small startup for a year. Before that I only did part-time projects.
If you knew then what you know now, would you have started in programming? Absolutely! But I never would of left it like I did a few times. I was a Sys Admin on a project, and then did some WhiteBox texting, Functional Automated Testing (all C, C++, Visual Basic still). But I always enjoyed Software Development more than all my other ‘industry’ jobs.
What was the most fun you ever had programming? Hard to isolate this to a single time as there were 4 times in my career. (1) The first time I was at Apple (I later returned 3 times as a Consultant). as an employee where I taught myself first Pascal then later C and wrote utilities for several projects I was working on. (2) After I left Apple my first time I was full-time working on projects for Macintosh, Dos, Windows. (3) Wrote some projects in Flash Actionscript the most fun was a CDROM project. (4) Most recently now I am back working on a product from Apple, but this time Xcode and iPhone I have the most fun when I am challenged with a problem and then research, read to figure out the best way to solve and implement the solution.