Ask HN: Am I the longest-serving programmer – 57 years and counting?

Re:Ask HN: Am I the longest-serving programmer – 57 years an... by kibwen on Sunday May 31, 2020 @12:12AM (#23367115)

Younger nothing, it's wild that I never stopped to consider that there was a (recent!) period where our whole professional field had to be invented out of thin air, scooping up willing academics as it went. Considering that ENIAC (along with the Von Neumann architecture) wasn't even a thing until 1945, to begin her career in 1944 is hardly late! :)

(Aside, I wonder if recruiters in 1944 were already asking for ten years of ENIAC experience?)

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Re:Ask HN: Am I the longest-serving programmer – 57 years an... by jodrellblank on Sunday May 31, 2020 @05:08AM (#23368263)

> our whole professional field had to be invented out of thin air

"We shall need a great number of mathematicians of ability; there will probably be a good deal of work of this kind to be done" - Alan Turing, 1945.

You might find this talk by Bob Martin interesting - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ecIWPzGEbFc - it's a history of programming that isn't the usual style, but instead about this growth into existance, increasing numbers of programmers, where they came from, and the effects that's had on the industry and on programming languages.

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