My mother was a computer programmer. One of the first. She graduated college with a degree in Math in the 50s, and was hired specifically to staff up her company's computer division. I've still got a photo of her climbing a step-stool, and moving jumpers around on a room sized computer.

My first encounter with a computer was at her workplace in the 70s, when I was on a school holiday not observed by her work, and she had no babysitter. By that time, she was programming in FORTRAN and no longer moving jumpers. I remember that she sat me down in front of an old teletype terminal in the computer room and I got to play "Colossal Cave Adventure" all day. I was totally hooked, and I think she had to drag me away.. I still cringe at how much paper my day of exploring the cave must have wasted. After years of begging and pleading, we got our first home computer a few years later (Apple II clone, the Franklin Ace 1000), and I've been programming ever since.

Most people in my town were not exposed to computers outside of limited encounters at school. I think that day in my Mom's office was what got me hooked on computers, and what started me on my career path.

Well, we all are surrounded by computers and minimal curiosity will guide you to ask how they work (they're magic, after all).

If one of your parents is a programmer, it's easy to go down the rabbit hole.

Plus it's way cool since you can impress your kiddie friends.

> Plus it's way cool since you can impress your kiddie friends.

"So you want to become a plumber, but with APIs and data instead of pipes and water?"

My internal kid voice said "Yeah!". Until I read the other reply, it hadn't occurred to me that your rhetorical question's intended answer might be "No"

I've always considered myself a digital janitor of sorts, always cleaning up garbage other people leave around.

Yeah, but can the plumber spam all his friends automatically on Instagram?

I’m actually surprised by that, although based on little more than my own experience of neither parent working in programming or IT or even technology. I would have assumed that, since computing itself is a fairly new field (only a few generations to work with) and presumably a very quickly-growing and -changing field in the last generation or two, the “new recruits” would vastly outnumber the children of programmers.

I am also surprised by it due to the fact that "Farmers and ranchers have parents who are farmers and ranchers at a rate 8 times the rest of the population."

Being a farmer myself, I don't think I have ever met a fellow farmer who didn't also have parents in the business. In my experience, the hurdles of getting into the role (required capital, knowledge, etc.) in this day in age seem insurmountable without family help. While anecdotal, I find it difficult to believe it is that close to computer programmers, where first generation workers appear to be quite common.

That’s a good example, especially considering that farming has ludicrous capital costs while programming has very low capital costs.

My dad was in computers, but more on the sales / it solution design side. Regardless the exposure was there, and when I was about 8 or 9 or so I had saved for a year of diligently doing chores and got my Vic 20 in the early 80s

I was never going to be anything else than a programmer, although it took me a while to realise it. :)

Today I have a son age 7 and he's on Tynker, and Dash & Dot. I reckon programming is going to be more of a skill to have which can then become the basis for other engineering things, we'll see I guess - but he'll have that from an early age at least.

(FWIW, I was so impressed to see Tynker introduce pub sub events in their courses early on. A lot of work places could do well to use such patterns..)

Also:

Software developers, applications and systems software have parents who are software developers, applications and systems software at a rate 9 times the rest of the population.

One explanation could be that computer programming has been a quickly growing field.

But wouldn't that make it less likely? The first programmers had zero chance of being in the same field as their parents.

The numbers are supposed to based on the child generation. If the numbers were based on the parent generation ("likelihood of passing down job preference") then a growing field should indeed increase the likelihood.

> The numbers are supposed to based on the child generation. If the numbers were based on the parent generation ("likelihood of passing down job preference") then a growing field should indeed increase the likelihood.

If we denote the event "Child is a programmer" by C and the event "A parent is a programmer." by P, then the sentence "Computer programmers have parents who are computer programmers at a rate 6 times the rest of the population." can be expressed in terms of probability as P(P|C)/P(P) = 6. Bayes' rule tells us that P(P|C) = P(C|P)P(P)/P(C), so the sentence is equivalent to P(C|P)/P(C) or "Parents who are computer programmers have children who are computer programmers at a rate 6 times the rest of the population."

It doesn't matter whether you are looking at the child generation or the parent generation, the heritability relative to the general population will come out to the same number. A growing field may increase the P(C|P) part of the ratio, but it will also increase P(C) in general, so it is not clear whether the relative measurement will change at all, and in which direction.

Thought experiment: generation n has 1% fidgeteers, generation n+1 has 100% fidgeteers. All generation n fidgeteers will have passed on their profession (procreation assumed), but few generation n+1 fidgeteers will have followed in their parents' footsteps (assuming non-fidgeteers also procreate).

Anecdotal data point: 3rd generation computer programmer here, and I hope that one of my sons also takes up the mantle, although I haven't seen any evidence that it's likely yet. I took it up because I had computers to play with at home, and my dad had Logo (turtle graphics) on one of them.

I'm also the 3rd in my family. My dad got me a Lego RIS 2.0 and down the rabbit hole I went. It started with my Grandpa[1] in the 50s.

[1] https://books.google.de/books?id=nDWPW9uwZPAC&lpg=PA295&ots=...

How old is your grandparent, and how did they start out? Are they still working as a programmer?

Wouldn’t that lead to the opposite result?

I thought the same at first, but it could also be interpreted that if you think your job is dying out (or just not a nice job) then you'll steer your kids away from it, whereas if it's a good job with lots of prospects then you'll use your connections and skills to direct your kids towards the same career.

Kind of undercuts the "self-made" programmer meritocracy that seems to be a prevelant idea though.

Computer programming must be one of the easiest jobs that you can do at home, outside of work, so there's very high visibility of what the job entails (at least, in a very vague sense).