How did you start programming?

[oni-kun]

I've  always wanted to know how many people have got an interest in the very beginning.

 

I've coded for VB.NET/console programming for roughly a year designing random applications when I was younger, but as I became more interested a few years ago in web development a good friend of mine was going to university for web programming, PHP.

 

I gave up on it when I first tried, but once I got the hang of it I became great ever since, I purchased my own site and started having fun developing many many random projects over time, such as having fun with GD to writing spiders.

 

Where/when did you begin, and with what languages?

[trq]

I do believe I've already posted my response to this question here.

[oni-kun]

I do believe I've already posted my response to this question here.

 

That fills in a bunch, I coulda sworn my dejavu about this being around was correct, thanks.

[ignace]

For me it all started in a PC cafe around 2003 where me and my friends played Counter-Strike and I downloaded skins to play with from http://games.telenet.be (doesn't exist anymore refers you to 9lives.be) and I wondered what it would take to create something like that somehow I landed at HTML and CSS later on. I must have written tons of templates back then just to get the hang of HTML and CSS and to create "stunning" templates which I would admire for a few hours and then started creating another.

 

In 2005, the union in the company for which my Dad worked - and for which he was a treasurer - needed a website but they didn't like the price-tag associated with it. My Dad knew I was messing around with that kind of stuff and volunteered me. So it was settled - without my knowledge - I would create their website.

 

When I heard I was excited first but that turned into worries because there is a big difference between creating a template for yourself and a website for a client, to cut a long story short I can say their website was tutorial-ed together (PHP was hot everything (tutorial) pointed in it's direction) and the best part is they loved it even after 5 years they still don't want to change the front-end template because they still get and got real good comments about their website. They even liked the back-end (which was inspired by Mint).

 

Although they were happy about the result I wasn't (because of the guilt and the endless tutorial code that made up their website) So bound to make it right I learned PHP thoroughly a few years later I wanted to take another shot and created a completly new website, new layout, neat code on which they replied: the website is fine like it is, it doesn't need changing. A couple years later I asked them again if they wanted a new website which was once rejected.

 

Now 5 years later I develop PHP websites with a passion and I'm proud to say that I have a thorough knowledge of the PHP library and Project A&D

[Adam]

Roughly 5 years ago when I was about 15 years old, with very little knowledge I volunteered myself to put together our newly formed Day of Defeat clan site (as it was a requirement to join the Enemy Down clan ladders). It was a shocking failure of course, but got the job done. After that I discovered PHP, and now 5 years later I work as a PHP developer.

[KevinM1]

When I was 3-4, waaaaayyy back in the early 80's, my family had a Commodore VIC-20.  It was essentially a computer in a keyboard.  It was designed to plug into a TV, so we used it mostly to play games in the living room (yay Gorf!).  When there wasn't a cartridge plugged into it, it was essentially a BASIC interpreter, so my brothers and I used to write some small, simple programs on it.

 

I didn't get into programming for real until I went to college.  I was a computer science major, learning C/C++.  I did alright until I got to the assembly language course.  I just have a hard time visualizing how to handle low level, binary stuff.  Unfortunately for me, that was a required course, so I failed out of the program.  I graduated with an essentially worthless Bachelor's in communication.  Yay.

 

At around the same time, one of my friends, who not coincidentally also failed out of CS, was making some money doing LAMP work for clients.  I was intrigued, and started teaching myself the same skill set.

 

And, there you go.

[SharkBait]

I was about 6 years old (1986) and learning BASIC on a Commodore 64.

 

Since then I've been tinkering around with various languages: Pascal/Turbo Pascal, C, C++, C#, VB.net, PHP and others.

 

I'm actually going to school in the Fall to obtain the paper I need to prove to business I know what I am doing, since they require the piece of paper and not just look at the work I have done. People (in the business world) seem to fear Self-Taught people.

 

 

 

[JonnoTheDev]

I was about 6 years old

Bloody hell. Are you in Mensa?

[arbitter]

I got interested at 16/17 years of age.

When I was 13 I had some 'scripting' lessons in school. It's between apostrophes because it was only working in microsoft acces. But I found it all very easy and fun, (though it was really not hard at all), but I couldn't really find any use in using acces. So years later, I got more and more on the web, and once on a day that I was browsing, just like any other, I thought to myself "Joren, wouldn't you like to make webpages?". So I looked html tutorials up in google and started making a website. While making it, I realised I'd need soms css to make my site look like something. So... I went ahead and learned (little) css. I finished the header of my site (http://www.fransdepypere.be/) and then I realised something else; with html itself you can't do anything. Because for every page, I'd have to copy my header and stuff again! I noticed a lot of sites were working with php so... I searched a littleof what that was. And I started using php very simple; only to include my header! Only then did I realise more capabilities, and so I went on. I still have a lot to learn; I only know half of css (though I'm starting to get the hang of it), I know really little about MySQL, and from all the php capabilities... I guess perhaps I know a fraction!

[salathe]

My first (BASIC ) programming was on the colourful Commodore64 with lots of PEEK-ing and POKE-ing, and to draw smiley faces on the screen. I loved the "magic" of being able to write some commands and have this mystery box do something with them.

[oni-kun]

Mmm yes, I came a little too late for the C64 era but it was sure fun playing with my DOS console and C64 emulators later on, I quite liked the simplicity of interactivity of the languages.

 

It's why I started VB.NET (when 12/13), which is MS's upped version of well, Visual BASIC, so it was fun and rewarding to make simple console programs and alike.

 

When I first started PHP I hated SQL, It looked ugly and I've seen 300 queries per page being run on simple games and things, I tended to "boycott" it by writing programs purely based on sessions or flatfiles (which were indeed faster), but then I slowly looked at how simple the ..er.. structured queries were and used it from then on!

 

@ the POKEing, I didn't memorize any of that but it was neat to POKE some predefined spaces (which edit colours, or show credits etc)

[mikesta707]

I started programming in some language called Liberty Basic (which now that I think about it, was really weird. Don't know why i didn't just use visual basic) around 12 years old and since then i'd been very interested in programming/computers/etc. My first real programming language was PHP, which i learned about a year later (along with HTML/CSS/Javascript). Since then i have tried a few difference languages. Now im a CS major in college, working on C++ algorithms and crap like that.

 

I was gonna write a pretty long response, but got lazy about half way through

[andrewgauger]

I was 9 (MENSA=yes).  Began programming BASIC (Q) and moved directly to Assembler  (you can poke assembler instruction, almost necessary to do high frame rate graphics for VESA 15 years ago).  Since developed in 33 languages.  I am most comfortable with PHP because of the elegance and diversity of the native language.  Did ASP (pre .NET) before PHP and loathe it.  I was a commercial Webmaster at 15.  Crafted custom database Win32 (VB pre .NET) applications before graduating high school (owned my own business).  Learned OLE DB and low level database interaction protocols.  About 2 weeks ago I started learning Python.  Learned Ruby about 3 months ago.  C# (rudiments) 6 months ago.  I'm going to get back to the grassroots and work on some C after I finish my blasted PHP project.

[oni-kun]

I started programming in some language called Liberty Basic (which now that I think about it, was really weird. Don't know why i didn't just use visual basic) around 12 years old and since then i'd been very interested in programming/computers/etc.

 

Before I got fully in to VB.NET (when I was your age) I also fiddled with BASIC versions, I remember stumbling across Liberty BASIC once .. I think the full version cost money though, so for applications I went to VB and for games I stumbled into DARKBASIC (Didn't go very far into that though).

[JonnoTheDev]

Does anyone remember the Gorillas game in QBASIC?

[arbitter]

You guys are all talking about things I'd never heard of

[oni-kun]

Does anyone remember the Gorillas game in QBASIC?

 

 

I almost won!

[JonnoTheDev]

WOW. You have it

[andrewgauger]

@neil.johnson

 

In high school I took keyboarding and penetrated the network to find a Dos prompt and loaded Qbasic and spent my time in class changing the physics, stuff like atomic bananas that would clear the whole screen and kill both gorillas.  Super long nibbles, etc.

[JonnoTheDev]

atomic bananas

LOL. Doesn't sound like it would be much of a game with those.

[Re321]

When I was in early teens I kept seeing sites updated with newer themes that I guess people liked alot, so I started doing my own web design, it was crappy at first :-\ but I learned how to do tables and divs later on without the need to reference a book.

 

When I worked with programming languages (BASIC) and things, I looked and noticed you could do programming on the web! so I got a free host and my mom paid for a fairly good one after I told her I was taking a programming course in highschool and I kept doing my projects from there