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How did you get involved in programming?
Surely, you must have heard about a computer before somewhere in your lifetime, and then for some reason, you decided to go into programming, either for fun or for profit or both.
Also, how did you become aware of the existence of the computer? Did your family have a personal computer when you were little? Were you a mathematician?
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A friend of the family who was a borough civil engineer realised that computers were going a thing in his workspace so bought two - the idea being ion the 10 year old can teach himself then he can subsequently teach the adult. This worked for us both and it is also why I am now peppering my young nephews and nieces with IoT type kits.
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At the time I was going to college I was learning to use a slide rule and the college just started a computer program and I figured it would be easier to learn to program a computer then a slide rule.
I was wrong!
New version: WinHeist Version 2.2.2 Beta I told my psychiatrist that I was hearing voices in my head. He said you don't have a psychiatrist!
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You inspired me to dig out one of my old slide rules.
... And I can't remember how to use the damned thing!
I wanna be a eunuchs developer! Pass me a bread knife!
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I kept my first slide rule for many years but never did learn how to use it.
New version: WinHeist Version 2.2.2 Beta I told my psychiatrist that I was hearing voices in my head. He said you don't have a psychiatrist!
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I know that if I start googling, I'll lose the whole day to it, so it's going back in the box.
I wanna be a eunuchs developer! Pass me a bread knife!
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It's so easy to get distracted...smart move.
New version: WinHeist Version 2.2.2 Beta I told my psychiatrist that I was hearing voices in my head. He said you don't have a psychiatrist!
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I still remember how to use one, but other than demonstrations for my children, I haven't used one in decades. 
Ah, for the wonderful good old days, when all we had were stone knives and bear skins...
If you have an important point to make, don't try to be subtle or clever. Use a pile driver. Hit the point once. Then come back and hit it again. Then hit it a third time - a tremendous whack.
--Winston Churchill
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I have a slide rule from my late father, along with a circular slide rule and a slide rule tie clasp (that actually works if you can read it).
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Besinger wrote: a slide rule tie clasp (that actually works if you can read it).
WANT!!!
I wanna be a eunuchs developer! Pass me a bread knife!
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Too much sentimental value, I used in in my Trig class in high school, you know, before they came out with scientific calculators. Yes, I'm that old. Some auction sites have them fairly cheep.
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I was 12 years old and stumbled into a Radio Shack. There they had a brand new TRS-80 (Model I), all alone, switched on and the manual right next to it.
And no, my parents had no computer before then. They thought I was crazy and did not intend to buy one, so I scraped together the few bucks I had and got myself a kit like this one[^] and built it myself. Actually it's still work in progress. Just last week I worked on a graphics card with a second CPU, so that the main CPU finally can run at its maximum clock frequency.
The language is JavaScript. that of Mordor, which I will not utter here
This is Javascript. If you put big wheels and a racing stripe on a golf cart, it's still a f***ing golf cart.
"I don't know, extraterrestrial?"
"You mean like from space?"
"No, from Canada."
If software development were a circus, we would all be the clowns.
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CDP1802 wrote: TRS-80 (Model I)
My first computer was one of these. I wrote a game for it and got my then girlfriend to type it into the computer.
Aaaah fond memories (the girl friend, not the compter)
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In 8th grade (around 13, maybe?) took a computer programming class in QBasic. The functional programming style coupled with solving problems got me hooked. I took Algebra for the first time in my life that same semester. It was life changing.
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In 1982 there has been an event in my city where they exposed some micro-computers from the era (mostly Thomson's MO5 and TO7), along with various Basic programs suitable for fourth-graders.
That changed my life. I asked for a computer soon after that and got a TI99-4A along with its Extended-Basic cartridge and a couple of games.
The virus was in.
You always obtain more by being rather polite and armed than polite only.
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Reading these posts makes me realize just how old these people really are. The dates are all before I was even born!
I am a Millennial, and I played on a computer in 1997-1998. At that time, there was already the Internet, but I didn't use the Internet much, because it hogged the phone line. As a kid, I just thought that the computer was a cool machine to play games on. That computer became a part of my bedroom in middle school and high school in the 2000s, while my family got a new family computer. We are not the most computer-savvy people, but we do have basic computer skills, like using Microsoft Office suite applications to write papers, spreadsheets, and presentations. Dad may program in MATLAB for his scientific research projects, and he taught himself BASIC and JAVA and C++ just because he thought they were cool. Mom is becoming proficient in using applications everyday, but she says she has no interest in programming. It's not relevant to her job anyway.
My computer skills are just average. I mean, I just know what a typical non-programming user knows. I worked with HTML and CSS as a teenager to design a static webpage on a virtual petsite, but that didn't last long, because the virtual pet site disabled JavaScript and PHP. I think it's because the virtual petsite was written in JavaScript and PHP, and the webmasters were afraid that users would hack into their computers. So, I moved to FreeWebs and designed little widgets (I think that's what they're called?) with just HTML and CSS. In 2011, I experimented with Excel to create a simple database and then a relational database and then tinkered with Excel macros and the Visual Basic for Applications language. Making the forms was fun, even though none of my college classes required any computer programming skills.
This summer is the summer that I would teach myself C++. I hope to use this skill to create an application that will aid in studying. I may publish the software as free, open-source software. I also want to learn web-based programming languages, so that I become more computer-literate and know what it is going on instead of relying on IT people.
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Someone told me along time ago, that I would get rich and famous if I got into programming; so far, I am neither. 
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How rich did you expect? The median salary for computer programmers seems to be around middle class.
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I did it for the nookie.
Jeremy Falcon
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Can you explain what "nookie" means? I see the dictionary definition, but I think it is the wrong definition. It does not seem to fit in this context.
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Urban dictionary is your friend.
Jeremy Falcon
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Eh? What does sex ("nookie") have to do with programming? 
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It's called irony: Google[^]
Peter Wasser
"The whole problem with the world is that fools and fanatics are always so certain of themselves, and wiser people so full of doubts." - Bertrand Russell
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Jeremy Falcon
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Jeremy Falcon wrote: I did it for the nookie.
So you can take that cookie
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