Re:Ask HN: How did you learn programming?
by waterlesscloud on Wednesday May 23, 2012 @02:29AM
(#4011835)
Learned Basic from my computer's manual, learned assembly from magazines.
I took some "computer programming" class in high school, but computers were still new-fangled to the faculty and it was entirely self-directed. I used the time to make a game in assembly on the school's Model III. There were PC Jrs for a broader computer literacy class, but I never used those.
In college, I started as a physics major and hence learned Fortran. Dropped out for a couple of years, went back as a CS major. Then was exposed to many things; C, C++, Prolog, Ada. But Pascal was the workhorse of the curriculum.
First job out of college was C (legacy projects) and C++ (new projects). And Visual Basic for some quick and dirty things.
Worked as a programmer for a while. Stopped. Did something else for many years. The last year or so I've been retraining myself. Played with Erlang and Clojure, but nothing serious. Made a couple of toy Android apps with Java. Wrote some simple Atari 2600 things using an emulator. Working through an idea for a site with Python/Django at the moment.
I'd like to work as a programmer again, I think. Or more accurately, I really enjoy being able to build things.
I feel most at home in C++ still, but I find myself using Python to try out ideas more and more as time goes on. Assembly still makes me happy, but I don't really use it for anything.
I took some "computer programming" class in high school, but computers were still new-fangled to the faculty and it was entirely self-directed. I used the time to make a game in assembly on the school's Model III. There were PC Jrs for a broader computer literacy class, but I never used those.
In college, I started as a physics major and hence learned Fortran. Dropped out for a couple of years, went back as a CS major. Then was exposed to many things; C, C++, Prolog, Ada. But Pascal was the workhorse of the curriculum.
First job out of college was C (legacy projects) and C++ (new projects). And Visual Basic for some quick and dirty things.
Worked as a programmer for a while. Stopped. Did something else for many years. The last year or so I've been retraining myself. Played with Erlang and Clojure, but nothing serious. Made a couple of toy Android apps with Java. Wrote some simple Atari 2600 things using an emulator. Working through an idea for a site with Python/Django at the moment.
I'd like to work as a programmer again, I think. Or more accurately, I really enjoy being able to build things.
I feel most at home in C++ still, but I find myself using Python to try out ideas more and more as time goes on. Assembly still makes me happy, but I don't really use it for anything.