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Awesome!
PooperPig - Coming Soon
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Opsimath: one who learns, or begins to study, later in life: [^].
I started about age forty-one, programming (you guessed it) BASIC, and then 6809 assembly language, then Pascal, then Lisp, SmallTalk, then PostScript, then on to Visual Basic and Excel<=>VBA, finally, reaching a fantasized nirvana with .NET and C#.
As this aging disintegratingly-animated package of meat-over-bones approaches (too soon) his 923rd. lunar cycle on this planet: he experiences it as wondrous, indeed, to behold, after thirty-years in the technical game, Visual Studio 2013, update 3, taking as long to complete simple actions in the design-ui as once measly 8-bit computers of yore used to traverse a doubly-nested for-loop ... that is: when Visual Studio 2013 doesn't crash on launch.
Of course that is an invidious comparison, and I will flagellate myself in expiation as soon as I post this.
cheers, Bill
“I have diligently numbered the days of pure and genuine happiness which have fallen to my lot: They amount to 14.” Abd-Ar Rahman III, Caliph of Cordoba, circa 950CE.
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BillWoodruff wrote: reaching a fantasized nirvana with .NET and C#
Bill-ji, reach out to Xamarin and the world of Android (or if you prefer, iOS) will be open to you. New wonders await me, and I hope you. 
/ravi
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Xamarin brings the vagaries of Visual Studio to the Mac. It often hangs for no reason, or when 2 Android AXML files are open simultaneously and you try to move from Design view to Source view.
It crashes, taking with it any and all changes you were making, Autosave being something that kicks in, inexplicably, after you've closed and re-opened a(n apparently) fully saved solution.
I can't decide what is the biggest challenge: keeping Xamarin running long enough to do something useful on it or working with the horrendous user interface for Android.
iOS support is slightly better but then, it has more to work with 
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Yes. I started at the advanced age of seventeen (in 1983). Years after my contemporaries had become ensnared by the siren's call of BASIC -- on the High School's PDP-11.
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After completing my 12th, I left my study and involved in my small father's business. After 6 years, I learned HTML, JavaScript and VB,C#. Currently stick with all .NET technologies.
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I'm no opsimath - as I began at a tender age (a mere 50 or so Lunar Cycles) to dabble in the mysterious world of incantation-by-keyboard.
My Pater was oft heard to bemoan 'progress' by pointing out that his first Word Processing program (on the BBC Computer) took up as much memory, in its entirety, as the hi-resolution MS Word Icon!
BillWoodruff wrote: I will flagellate myself in expiation as soon as I post this.
To each his own!
PooperPig - Coming Soon
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Does it count if you started a long time ago (before the internet was even in the vocabulary of the citizenry) and then, this month, you are starting another study in yet another language ?
Of course, this computer language is the ultimate end-all, be-all, for everything forever. It will save our souls and provide for our needs, permanently. Forever.
Are you familiar with those science fiction movies from the 1950s ? You know; the Black and white movies with aliens from advanced civilizations popping in for a visit. Their computers were programmed with it.
The more things change, the more they stay the same.
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C-P-User-3 wrote: The more things change, the more they stay the same.
That would sound so much better in another language
Like C#
PooperPig - Coming Soon
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No. I started as a teenager, when PC was still fresh (just as me), but never stopped since. After 30 years I still learn new things every day almost...
I'm not questioning your powers of observation; I'm merely remarking upon the paradox of asking a masked man who he is. (V)
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I wasn't an opsimath when I started studying programming (in 1972!), but I am definitely one now.
As someone who has seen various programming 'paradigms' come and go (often more than once, but under different names) I can only agree with the OP that "the more things change the more they stay the same".
I still love to learn new things and - where possible - work with them, but the increasing complexity of the underlying technologies (attempting to make what was a core programming task simply a 'given') means that you have to learn ever 'higher level' languages to effectively achieve much the same tasks you used to in the older environments, just with the whole thing taking more computer power:
For example: Producing a correctly typeset document in InDesign now takes exactly the same time that it did in, say, Ventura 20 years ago, but is using over 100,000 times as much memory, disk space and CPU power...
A corollary to this is that there are whole generations of programmers out there, many of them extremely well qualified on paper, who have absolutely no idea how the machinery they are using actually functions, or what it's limitations might be, which is fine until you hit one of those limits and then have no idea, say, why your apparently simple small SQL query overloads the server for 8 hours to return one single row recordset with two columns in it...
I'll get me Zimmer frame...
8)
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 Yep
A very good post that I totally agree with.
Very well put Mike
"Rock journalism is people who can't write interviewing people who can't talk for people who can't read." Frank Zappa 1980
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No, I started about 12..13 years of Age, with a C64 & BASIC / asm, when many Kids in School already had an Amiga or 286/386 PC or so, didn't have the dough for "a real computer" as I was told to rather buy.
As for VS2013, not using it yet. But when I heard MS hired the then head of the Eclipse team, I involuntarily emanated a scream of agony into the night, for I knew, the fate of my beloved tool of choice was sealed.
( hah I don't know how bad it really is and what the guy had to do with it, but still, MS, what were you thinking  )
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One who doesn't learn, or stops to study, later in life.
It's me. Is there special word for this?
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Alex Fr wrote: Is there special word for this?
Well, I think that's a difficult one because you'd really need to know context, and motivation, to choose an appropriate word.
Consider someone who stops aggressively staying up-to-date in programming languages and technologies of choice because they are secure in their job, know it well, and want to devote time to family life, or other forms of mental development, or hobbies, or just enjoying the rewards of a life well spent: I would not use a negative term to describe such a person.
But, you know, language is a living liquid continually taking the fractaly evolving shape of the cultural container (itself a flexible medium) it ferments in. Nothing wrong with your inventing a neologism: how about "noopsimath" as a value-neutral descriptor that has a slight touch of whimsy in the pun on "no-op" ?
cheers, Bill
“I have diligently numbered the days of pure and genuine happiness which have fallen to my lot: They amount to 14.” Abd-Ar Rahman III, Caliph of Cordoba, circa 950CE.
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I made a living programming for 30+ years, starting with Fortran/punch cards
and now C#/.NET. I'm 72 now and retired but I still program as a hobby.
I hope I am still active if and when quantum computing comes to the
desktop!
(BTW I just read an article with the following example: To factor a
large (250 digit) number with today's computers would take "a million
networked computers running for a million years, but the same problem
could be solved in minutes with a quantum computer")
CQ#?
73
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I started with Fortran and Assembler/punch cards and am now doing VB.Net. I'm 60, working, and expect to be programming for many years to come as well.
Edward...
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I don't know about an opsithingy, but if your code is as hard to understand as your English I'd give you a wide berth in my company
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Fantastic -- you've just described my entire history of programming as well - right down to the 6809 - I was somewhat younger when I did it, but it was at roughly the same actual time (in terms of which year it was)... I love it. And I agree: there was something intrinsically satisfying about programming an 8-bit machine in assembly language which is, somehow, missing from the beautiful high-level world of today...
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Take good care[^]
It's a really nice song by Liv Kristine ... just to let all of you know that I'm still lurking around here ...
Espen Harlinn
Chief Architect - Powel AS
Projects promoting programming in "natural language" are intrinsically doomed to fail. Edsger W.Dijkstra
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Excellent song, she has a good voice.
Backatcha Enigma[^]
Good to see your still lurking, we've missed ya!
New version: WinHeist Version 2.1.0 Beta
Have you ever just looked at someone and knew the wheel was turning but the hamster was dead?
Trying to understand the behavior of some people is like trying to smell the color 9.
I'm not crazy, my reality is just different than yours!
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Mike Hankey wrote: Good to see your still lurking, we've missed ya!
Thanks 
Enigma is just great - I've been listening to Michael Cretu since his Invisible Man[^] album.
Espen Harlinn
Chief Architect - Powel AS
Projects promoting programming in "natural language" are intrinsically doomed to fail. Edsger W.Dijkstra
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Well, I do. This[^] is a T-Rex 450 Sport. It's not the latest model, but I got myself a used one on FleaBay for a low price.
At the moment it looks more like this.[^] The canopy, the landing gear, tail boom supports and the complete tail rotor have been removed. It's made mostly of aluminium alloy or carbon fiber parts and only very little plastic. That leaves a good impression, with the exception of the four screws which hold the tail boom. I replaced the original eight smaller screws with four stronger steel screws and now the tail can't slide out anymore.
I have done this to install it into this body.[^] It's a modified Bell 222 which once was the star of a TV series. And after the TV series it was sold to a company here in Germany and served as a flying ambulance until it crashed when it came into bad weather when returning from a flight.
I'm sure you will know the TV series if you look at the model. And wish me luck for putting it together and getting it to fly.
The language is JavaScript. that of Mordor, which I will not utter here
I hold an A-7 computer expert classification, Commodore. I'm well acquainted with Dr. Daystrom's theories and discoveries. The basic design of all our ship's computers are JavaScript.
modified 1-Sep-14 15:28pm.
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