I've just gone throught the thread started by stuartalex - "What was your first VB project?" and thought that another interesting topic was for people to talk about how they got hooked onto programming.

I'll have a go first. I was 13 years old and it was the first time I had seen a computer. This was in the schools computer lab and the seniors were not very helpful so I had to look around while they were going about their business.

I saw one guy type "BASIC" on the computer and figured "That must be how you learn the basics". My first chance at the computer, I typed "BASIC" but what I saw didn't seem very basic to me.

So off I went to the library with a friend and we found the one book on computers, by some luck titled "Using GW-BASIC". The library only allowed a person to have a book for up to 2 weeks so I would have it for 2 weeks, and when I was returning it we would go together and he would take it for 2 weeks and that way we studied it for the whole year. (It was a very thick book."

By going through the examples in that book we grasped a number of techniques; for instance, if I was asked to add two very large numbers I would start GW-BASIC and write a small program to do that for me. That was all I knew, I couldn't even use WordPerfect or Lotus 1-2-3.

After we had gone through the book, we discovered that the program we had been writing had a collection of games and songs with some pretty neat graphics and the 2 of us were hailed as some whiz kids. (The seniors were very jealous and the next year the computer lab became out of bounds for juniors.)

The next time I had access to a computer was when I was 15 and that was when I first saw Windows (Windows 95). Someone had been showing me a game called Doom and I used to call Windows Doom because I thought it was part of the game. I leared Windows without any assistance. I later learned QBasic and COBOL (in college).

Other programming languages I learnt (self-taught) were C, PROLOG, C++, VBA before doing a course in VB. It was then when I fell in love with programming. I learned Visual C++ so that I could translate it's code into VB to do the things that VB "could not do". When I was learning Java (by this time I was teaching VB for a living) the lecturer kept "marketing Java" telling us how it is robust and VB is not so I challenged him to do an application in Java that I had done in VB. We never saw him again and that was the last time I looked at Java. Now I am self taught in VB.NET and C#, VBScript and a bit of JavaScript.

Your turn now. How did you start?

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My boss is a Jewish Carpenter (Jesus Christ)


Brain Bench Certified VB.NET Developer

I remember complaining to my step father that I really, really wanted to start programming. I think I annoyed him so much he finnally gave me his old version of VB3. After teaching myself VB (with a small helping hand from my step dad) I've been making games in my spare time ever since.  

I'm so glad I started, my life just wouldn't have been the same without VB.

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There are only 10 types of people in this world, those that understand binary and those that don't.

Welp... I my dad wanted to show me some stuff on his 8088 computer which had GWBasic, he created some pacman game.

I started playing around with it to do basic
stuff like draw circles and write text etc...

I'm not an expert thou, I'm still learning soo much lol.. I just like to play too many video games he he


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Today is a new day, in
a world OF CODE!

The first thing i new abt computer programming was "Syntax error". It wasn't until i was @ university pursuing a degree in applied biology and biochemistry   that i had to tak a course in computer programming as part of our course. We had a bulgarian professor from the department of computer science teaching us.. his english was  so poor all you could discern in all his lectures was "Syntax error".. we were learning Fotran 77.. as yu can imagine almost the entire class failed the course in programming and had to write supplementary exams

I was back @ university writing the sup exam  when i got a very interesting book on Fotran 77 from the Library.. man was i intrigued, i devoured the book and spent hrs having fun with Fortran.. as yu can imagine .. i passed my sup exam.. but i was hooked.. abt the same time i chanced to come across the internet and inevitably bunked my lectures spending hrs on the net. Yu must being in Zimbabwe, Africa the internet was just beginning to come to us. I was so excited no-one seemed to understand .. and my classmates finally gave the nickname "Internet"..     After that there was  no turning back for me

I dropped out of university in my second year and began to teach myself HTML, C, C++ . In the wilderness that was C++ , the harzards of C++ pointers i stumbled across a jewel called Java. Oh man .. did i have fun!!   I was in the Java camp for long in the Java vs VB.OLD(all version of VB b4 VB.NET) war. It wasn't until the release of .NET that i finally broke my vow of not using microsoft technologies

Right now 4 me all things are .NET (ASP.NET with C# mostly, vb.net here and there)

Because of .NET i have stopped beating up Fabulous from the VB camp I think MS finally got a winner


[Edited by zimcoder on 17-08-2004 at 07:49 PM GMT]

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BrainBench ADO.NET and ASP.NET Certified Developer

quote:

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zimcoder wrote:
[...] i new abt ...
[...] tak a course ...
[...] .. man was i intrigued, i devoured the book and spent hrs ...
[...] as yu can imagine ..
[...] Yu must being ...

[...more...]

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quote:

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zimcoder wrote:
.... We had a bulgarian professor ....

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You got me there    ... i must have subconsciously learnt one or two things from him

i guess i can take solace from this
  
I just hate proof reading .. this sms stuff has got me writing wierd english

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BrainBench ADO.NET and ASP.NET Certified Developer

Well, not many have replied here so I decided to post my story, while I'm waiting for a reply to one of my other topics which may never come.

Btw, I'm 13 right now. XD

About three years ago, when I still had my cyrix 133 processor,  I didn't know much about programming.  My brother, who is now 15, used to play around with a program unknown to me at the time, called QBasic.  He would make simple utilities and text-based games.  I watched him as he programmed, and soon, I could do a few simple things myself.

So after about a year, when I was about 11, my brother was introduced to a program called Visual Basic 5.  He installed it on his computer and would spend countless hours working with it, trying to learn as much of it as he could.  Eventually, my curiousity overwhelmed me and I had to see what he was doing.  I thought it was very interesting, so I installed it on my cyrix 133 and began making simple applications.

Almost everything I know about VB was taught to me by my brother.  I also have Visual C++ 6.0 but I haven't gotten the chance to try and learn it at all.

So thats my story.  Me go now.

-X3ndou

quote:

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Btw, I'm 13 right now. XD

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New to the forum and thought this would be a good place for my first post...

I got started with QuickBasic on a Macintosh... didn't do much with it - or programming - until college.

Since then my programming bent has gone towards scripting for the web.  I still play around with application programming for some personal projects, but my job is all web programming.

This is where my age shows.  

My first attempts at Basic were made on a Sinclair ZX81 (a WHAT?? I hear you young-uns say) I had the suped-up version 'cos I had got a whole 16KB (YES!! KB) of RAM.

Many years later, during which time I had done no more programming, I found myself out of work. I had some experience in the hotel trade during which I had come across software programs for hotel bookings, but they were all VERY expensive from the point of view of small hoteliers, so I thought "Here's a market opportunity" and decided I would try to write a program aimed at smaller hotels.
I started playing around with Access and VBA, then moved onto VB5. I did produce a working program that got trialed in a small 14 bed seaside hotel, but I never actually sold it to anyone 'cos I then got a job for a Polythene Manufacturer who wanted me to write an In-House program for their business.
I'm still there, heading up an IT department of ONE.
I now write in VB6 and VB.NET, using both Access and SQLServer2000 databases, and have written a couple of apps. for other people in my spare time.

Anybody want to buy a hotel program??  



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multi-tasking - the ability to hang more than one app. at the same time.

quote:

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Anybody want to buy a hotel program??  ;)

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I'm not that kind of boy Goran - I couldn't possibly share a hotel with a total stranger       

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multi-tasking - the ability to hang more than one app. at the same time.

gosh! u all seem to remembre exactly how u started programming! When eva any1 asks me how i started, i just say "I guess i know basic by birth" heheheh
Ummm. as much as i remember, i had a Commodore 64 (thats 64kb  RAM) from the time i was born ('85) and when i was around 5 or so, i started playing games on it... I aslo had a manual of GWBASIC, and i guess that's where i might have started basic, but i'm not quite sure    heheh


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lOsT...

I started actually programming my senior year of high school (just 3 years ago), with Visual C++.

I did HTML since freshman year, and only learned to type the year before that.  But, I took a few computer classes where I used software and created things using the software (especially some "kiddy" software on a Mac).  I got into the C++ class without the requirement class (which they got rid of my junior year, when I applied to get into it), and took to it (highest in my class).

I learned Visual Basic as soon as I got into college, then refreshed C++ while taking the second level VB class, then learned Java.

Guess which stuck?

Now, I've known VB for two years, and I haven't stopped programming with it.  I would like to learn VB.NET, but I don't have the cash to get it (though, with how I'm going through college, I'll probably get into classes to learn it).

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View what programs I have made for VB6:
http://www.geocities.com/map_hrs/vb/index.html
I also have some source code examples on the page.

I've always wanted to get into the computer industry, and I thought to myself "Where to start?". Then a friend of mine came up to me and said "I'm learning Visual Baisc this year (This was when I was in Year 9) in computer studies, you wanna learn as well?" So, out of curiosity I said "o.k." and a year later, I'm still at it!

P.S.(I need a good C# compiler which is free and works on ME, know where one is?)

                        

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To err is human, to do it again is stupid.

quote:

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jhalofist25 wrote:
I've always wanted to get into the computer industry, and I thought to myself "Where to start?". Then a friend of mine came up to me and said "I'm learning Visual Baisc this year (This was when I was in Year 9) in computer studies, you wanna learn as well?" So, out of curiosity I said "o.k." and a year later, I'm still at it!

P.S.(I need a good C# compiler which is free and works on ME, know where one is?)

                        

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my parents won an apple 2c in a contest or something with the credit card company.  they gave me the computer and i messed with it for all of junior high school.  since then i have gone to college for a BS in comp sci and i run a web server in my room. and im researching video game development

I don't remember when I started programing, but I remember that it was in QBasic making circles, texts games, and lot's of stuff like "Enter your password"  
Then I got in my hands the War Craft II (a game) and I quit QBasic, but a few months later I took a VB5 course for a few weeks, I learned lots of things and I've made some small programs, but I stopped programing 'cause I didn't have a computer, and now I have a good one, but I don't have the VB5 , but insted I have the Visual Basic Studio 2005, but the problem is that I don't remember many things, and that the Visual Basic Studio 2005 language is kinda different to the VB5, but I'm going to try to learn it.
I've had fun wih VB5

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I'm not afraid of anything
I just need to know that I can breathe

Oh boy, I feel ancient!

You asked the question, so I will answer, so don't blame me....

After bumming around from job to job for many years I thought it was time I done something with myself (and I don't mean self-abuse). So knowing I had some grey matter unused, I put myself through college 3 nights a week for 3 years (working full time and raising a young family in the meantime) studying electronics.

I knew the computer industry was the top of the electronics tree (hey I'm not talking about piddly PCs and MAcs, I mean HUGE machines that could take up a whole office block) and so after 5 years experience in electronics, I wangled myself in at the ground floor with an American manufaturer of super-mini-mainframes. This was a great company, but for the first two weeks or so I wandered around thinking to myself "What's this word "software" that all the engineers keep talking about?". As a nuts-and-bolts electronics engineer I found it really difficult to grasp the concept.

One day one of the senior engineers showed me a folder on BASIC that would run on these goliaths. I thumbed through it and something in me seemed to happen "Hey I can CONTROL one of these beasts" I spent many hours after work sitting at a green and black monitor keying in programs I had written in longhand. I was hooked! It got noticed and I was sent on a programming course and was asked to write an inventory program for the company using a system called Information and its language Info-Basic.

Seven years later I left and took a years sabbatical and then ran my own business (nothing to do with computers). By the end of this period, PCs (as we know them today) were getting common; but I'd bought myself an Amiga and a programming language called AMOS (anyone ever heard of it?) I spent a year full time writing a game (very similar to railroad tycoon but using ships) and showed it to a local company that was advertising for programmers. It got me the job and that started me off on the road to VB (I was already forty by this time!!)

Twelve years later (yes I really am THAT old) I have retired to France, but am in the process of writing an accountancy package for ex-pats (I done a lot of work with Sage and Pegasus during the last 12 years) and just generally veebeeing around.

A chequered past eh? and I have actually skipped over a load of other stuff entirely.

VB is a great language that allows people from all walks of life and all ages to communicate on common ground.

Dave     

[Edited by Dave Green on 17-11-2005 at 05:50 PM GMT]

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While Breath.Count>0
       Live(gbRelax)
Wend

Well, IMHO you've had a great job-life, full of significant experiences, retiring in a lovely country (if you don't mind people, ehehe), and doing what you like as a hobby in your spare time. And moreover, considering that you get graduated while feeding a family!
I'm glad for you.

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Real Programmer can count up to 1024 on his fingers

Thanks yronium
Nice message.

Regards
Dave

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While Breath.Count>0
       Live(gbRelax)
Wend

oh man!seems like every body started from something.hehe!

me,i got hooked on computers and programming when my brother brought home an ancient pc <IBM i think> from his company.it's got some games on it,and i was like wow! he bought a new one for my other brother because he<the other brother> was studying  programming.i learned about the programming stuff, how you can be like a master of the game,of the process.that's how i got hooked.whenever he's out,i'd take his ancient book on VB5 and look for small progs and try to make them work.that's my story.any way,i still am out for a lot of games,like it more than tv.hehehe!

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united we stand,divided we stand alone...