View Poll Results: How did you gain your knowledge in computer science?
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Self - Taught (burning the midnight oil to get answers?
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School Taugh - Did you get your knowledge from a college or university?
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Is it still to early for you vote on this poll?
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Jun 1st, 2012, 08:35 PM
#1
Thread Starter
Hyperactive Member
Poll - Quick show of hands
How did you learn your background with computer science?
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Jun 1st, 2012, 10:12 PM
#2
Re: Poll - Quick show of hands
I had to go with the too early option... because I'm about 25% formal training, 25% self-taught, and 50% experience ... in retrospect, I shouldn't have voted... but oh well. At any rate, most of what I know I've picked up from reading things and then experimenting and just trying things to see what works and what doesn't.
-tg
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Jun 1st, 2012, 10:47 PM
#3
Addicted Member
Re: Poll - Quick show of hands
My situation is pretty much the same as techgnome's. I learned the basics of VB6, then gained .NET knowledge by teaching myself and experience. Trial and error. Voted the same (Too early ...).
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Jun 1st, 2012, 11:32 PM
#4
Re: Poll - Quick show of hands
Self taught here. I started with Commodore Basic, then GW Basic VB for Dos then VB 3,4,5,6 2003, 2005, 2008 and 2010. Dabbled a bit with Turbo Pascal, Turbo C, Visual C++, Java Script and a bit of C# as well as a couple of scripting languages that most people never heard of.
Started as a hobby then a full time job and now I work for myself as a freelance.
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Jun 2nd, 2012, 01:16 AM
#5
Re: Poll - Quick show of hands
Never really had much to do with programming at school. Did a little BASIC in maths in year 11 but that was pretty much it. Started university at the age of 22 and studied Chemistry and Chemical Engineering. Did a half-credit subject programming Fortran in my second year and loved it. Also did a little Pascal in second year maths. Finished Chemistry degree but hated Chemical Engineering more and more and finally packed it in and, at the age of 28, began Computer Science course and earned degree after two years, aged 30. Computer Science course was completely in C. Worked in C++ for two years and then self-taught VB.NET and C# from there.
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Jun 2nd, 2012, 09:42 AM
#6
Thread Starter
Hyperactive Member
Re: Poll - Quick show of hands
I'm starting to see a trend. Looks like a lot of folks are getting a good primer in programming and then teaching themselves from there.
began Computer Science course and earned degree after two years
Hey jmc when it comes to someone who wants to learn how to program would you advise picking up a book on a language or should they get a good primer in computer science first and then choose a language?
I think this thread will help a lot of folks like me who are new to programming and are facing to choose a path to take to learn the ropes.
That's interesting info. Thanks for posting DataMiser, Ashaelon, and techgnome.
Started as a hobby then a full time job and now I work for myself as a freelance.
I am hoping to be self taught and maybe one day full time as a freelancer...for me right now it's a complete hobby as I have a full time day job...for now.
just trying things to see what works and what doesn't.
Good stuff guys.
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Jun 2nd, 2012, 09:54 AM
#7
Re: Poll - Quick show of hands
Originally Posted by simpleonline1234
Hey jmc when it comes to someone who wants to learn how to program would you advise picking up a book on a language or should they get a good primer in computer science first and then choose a language?
I doubt that anyone would ever consider having a Computer Science degree a bad thing when it comes to being a programmer. It would generally take at least three years though, so it's a big investment. Mine only took two because I was able to use the Chemistry I'd already done as my electives. I'm the only programmer in my office with a Computer Science degree, although several others have degrees in other areas. It's obviously not essential but it can't hurt. Many people would be able to learn quite enough to land a job and do it well in less time though. I would say that if you're capable and willing to get a degree then you should, but don't be discouraged if you can't as there are still plenty of opportunities.
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Jun 2nd, 2012, 09:10 PM
#8
Re: Poll - Quick show of hands
Unlike JMC, in my case, school had nothing to do with programming when I had much to do with it. There were a few courses in HS, but I had been tinkering with BASIC, by then, and the courses were so remedial that even that little exposure meant that I knew more than the teachers did, at the time. Dark days, those were, but I did get one of those cool, new, LED watches. Wish I still had it, as it would be pretty retro, now.
Some kind of foundation in computers was required for the class behind mine in college, so I was surfing just ahead of that wave, too. I do remember that one guy on my floor had a hard drive. It was 10MB, and was a whole separate box beside the computer. We thought he was pretty cool, since those things cost way more than any of us could afford. Another rich kid had a PC/AT with no less than 2 floppy drives. I think he might have had a CGA monitor (four colors), but I may be getting that confused with one of the special computers at the school. There were a couple CGA monitors there. Perhaps that guy had an EGA monitor (16 colors). It's been a while, now, so I don't quite recall.
I didn't do any programming for the years I was in college and grad school, but got back into it writing macros in Quattro Pro (very like ASM, really, except for the nearly infinite registers, no comments, and deathly slow execution). That got me into learning ASM and C/C++. In 1995, MS came out with Excel95 with the first really functional VBA. I moved the macros over to that and they ran about 60x faster. Still, coding was pretty much a hobby and a side activity for a long time. As it turns out, anybody in Biology who has an interest in programming will be used as such, eventually, because of a HUGE quantity of data and an equally HUGE deficit in data management, so now I just code.
My usual boring signature: Nothing
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Jun 2nd, 2012, 09:46 PM
#9
Re: Poll - Quick show of hands
Giving away your age just a bit
I used to have one of those black Casio watches with the red leds first one I had saw, thought it was cool at the time. Would be very retro now.
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Jun 2nd, 2012, 11:21 PM
#10
Re: Poll - Quick show of hands
In most of the cases in this profession, we get most of our knowledge from work experience, i could say in most cases it's around 80% or 90% of our knowledge that comes from work experience, so I don't understand why "work experience" (or something like that) is not an option in the poll.
It always depends on the country and other variables, offcourse, but just to give you an example, each time someone calls me for a job offer they don't want to know if I went to University, they don't want to know if I have a degree, they just want to know how many years of experience i have using certain technology in previous jobs for other organizations and where did I work, nothing else.
Last edited by jcis; Jun 2nd, 2012 at 11:52 PM.
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Jun 2nd, 2012, 11:42 PM
#11
Re: Poll - Quick show of hands
Good point, I did teach myself a lot through reading and trial and error but I learned tons of new things when I started writing apps for work and later on contracts. Before working for a company I had never touched a mobile device nor did anything with barcodes since then I have worked with numerous mobile devices with OSs ranging from windows CE2 to the current CE 6 and Mobile 7 OS and most types of barcodes. Web pages, lots of RS232 and IP stuff as well which I had only dabbled in before.
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Jun 3rd, 2012, 12:36 AM
#12
Re: Poll - Quick show of hands
Moved to the General Developer Forum.
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Jun 3rd, 2012, 02:30 AM
#13
Re: Poll - Quick show of hands
Completely self-taught from the age of 12 or 13. Started with a rather primitive form of basic...or at least I think it was some kind of basic on an Apple Macintosh. Continued on a 286 with a CGA graphics card using GWBasic/Basica which in those times was cutting edge. After it was QBX(Quick Basic Extended), then VB2 then VB4, then VB6 until VB.Net. Along the way I picked up some C++ and relatively recently, JavaScript, and some HTML.
The one thing I wish I had in my earliest years was the internet. I'd be 10x the coder if the availability of information was such as the internet has made it today.
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Jun 3rd, 2012, 04:49 PM
#14
Re: Poll - Quick show of hands
Originally Posted by Niya
The one thing I wish I had in my earliest years was the internet. I'd be 10x the coder if the availability of information was such as the internet has made it today.
you're right. the www has a wealth of programming examples + resources, + let's hope it continues to improve
- Coding Examples:
- Features:
- Online Games:
- Compiled Games:
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Jun 3rd, 2012, 05:36 PM
#15
Re: Poll - Quick show of hands
It would have been nice to have the net back in the beginning for me as well. When I started all I had was a few basic books. No internet and no one who I could ask questions or even talk to about the subject. Hard to imagion what I might have learned had I had access to resources available today.
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Jun 5th, 2012, 03:57 AM
#16
Re: Poll - Quick show of hands
School taught. 4 years for a Computer Science degree. As the years pass by, I get to appreciate the value of a CS degree more and more - especially the background math knowledge which I would probably not have picked up on my own.
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Jun 5th, 2012, 06:40 AM
#17
Re: Poll - Quick show of hands
Originally Posted by Niya
Completely self-taught from the age of 12 or 13. Started with a rather primitive form of basic...or at least I think it was some kind of basic on an Apple Macintosh. Continued on a 286 with a CGA graphics card using GWBasic/Basica which in those times was cutting edge. After it was QBX(Quick Basic Extended), then VB2 then VB4, then VB6 until VB.Net. Along the way I picked up some C++ and relatively recently, JavaScript, and some HTML.
The one thing I wish I had in my earliest years was the internet. I'd be 10x the coder if the availability of information was such as the internet has made it today.
Originally Posted by DataMiser
It would have been nice to have the net back in the beginning for me as well. When I started all I had was a few basic books. No internet and no one who I could ask questions or even talk to about the subject. Hard to imagion what I might have learned had I had access to resources available today.
Perhaps... but the way I look at it, we learned how to read the documentation, learned how to debug and problem solve... I'm not sure I'd be the developer I am today if it weren't for those early hard lessons.
-tg
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Jun 5th, 2012, 08:04 AM
#18
Re: Poll - Quick show of hands
Well, I suppose we had no choice. What little documentation we had in the old days was all we had to go on. There was no google and no forums so the only choice was to squeeze as much as we can out of what little info we had. Today you can look up something and find about 100 different ways to do it in mere seconds. Youngsters these days are so spoiled lol It gets on jmc's nerves to no end when people don't want to read documentation....if only they knew how grateful they should be.
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Jun 5th, 2012, 09:40 AM
#19
Re: Poll - Quick show of hands
That's a good point. Books were almost never exactly on topic, and tended to be pretty expensive. Therefore, you had to try to get the book that would cover the topic you were really interested in, or at least was close enough, and from there you had to do a lot of extrapolation. These days, if you want an example of picking upper case letters, and you find an example of picking any letter, you might as well search again, because the one you really want is probably out there.
My usual boring signature: Nothing
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Jun 5th, 2012, 09:51 AM
#20
Re: Poll - Quick show of hands
I remember 2 of my favortie books early on that I learned a lot from where Supercharging MS DOS and Basic Programming inside and out. I still have these books of the shelf though I havne't looked at them for many years I just can't bring myself to get rid of them.
I think one positive from learning back then was that I had very little memory, disk space and cpu power to work with and I was trying to write games so I learned be write code that had a small footprint and quick execution. This is still part of every program I write. The hard lessons do stick better than the easy ones but still it would have been a big help to have had an online searchable resource for info back then.
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Jun 6th, 2012, 12:25 AM
#21
Re: Poll - Quick show of hands
Originally Posted by DataMiser
I think one positive from learning back then was that I had very little memory, disk space and cpu power to work with and I was trying to write games so I learned be write code that had a small footprint and quick execution.
Oh god yes. I remember the 640KB limit that DOS had for loading executable code. That was such a major pain!!! You really had to be efficient with your memory consumption. Today, coders may take for granted the fact that you could declare a 10 MB array but in those days that was only a dream.
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Jun 6th, 2012, 12:53 AM
#22
Re: Poll - Quick show of hands
When I got to 640k I thought that was a huge amount
Before that I was working on a C64 it had 64k of ram, 32 of which was used already so there was 32k to work with. It did have 16 colors though
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Jun 6th, 2012, 07:58 AM
#23
Re: Poll - Quick show of hands
I initially learned on an Apple IIe ... at home I had an original I.B.M. PC 4.77Mhz started with two 5" floppies, and 256K .... that's "K" for you youngins... I remember upgrading it to 640K, and a 32Mb hard drive... added a Logitech mouse - that was my first encounter with an SDK, interfacing with the mouse from BASIC - And a Hayes 2400baud modem. Initially we had it hooked up to a black&white TV, but eventually did get a VGA monitor.
Somewhere I think I might even have a Timex Sinclair T1000 .... has a whopping 1k, BASIC, integrated keyboard and uses a tape recorder for storage. Now that was fun times.
-tg
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Jun 6th, 2012, 08:41 AM
#24
Re: Poll - Quick show of hands
I started on a TRS-80 Level I with 4K RAM and a tape drive...with crazy short tapes. Back in those days, if you wanted to draw graphics, you got a sheet of graph paper with the same number of cells as there were pixels on the screen (Apple sold some paper with the pixel count of the Apple II monitors). You would then draw the image on the graph paper, then turn on the pixels based on your drawing. The Apple paper made this a bit easier by numbering the lines on the paper to match the coordinates on the screen.
That initial 640K for the PC wasn't really 640K, anyways, since it was paged memory with 64K pages. You were always trying to keep code below that size, and ideally, no single array or other memory object was larger than 64K so you could avoid the Huge memory model (which was inefficient).
EDIT: Gawd! What a bunch of decrepit old codgers. Get me my cane and get off my lawn!! Damn kids, anyhow!
My usual boring signature: Nothing
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Jun 6th, 2012, 08:42 AM
#25
Fanatic Member
Re: Poll - Quick show of hands
Originally Posted by techgnome
I initially learned on an Apple IIe ... at home I had an original I.B.M. PC 4.77Mhz started with two 5" floppies, and 256K .... that's "K" for you youngins... I remember upgrading it to 640K, and a 32Mb hard drive... added a Logitech mouse - that was my first encounter with an SDK, interfacing with the mouse from BASIC - And a Hayes 2400baud modem. Initially we had it hooked up to a black&white TV, but eventually did get a VGA monitor.
Somewhere I think I might even have a Timex Sinclair T1000 .... has a whopping 1k, BASIC, integrated keyboard and uses a tape recorder for storage. Now that was fun times.
-tg
When I first read your comment about 256K of memory I was about to shout that you were spoiled brat - but then I got to your Sinclair T1000 and decided that you weren't too spoiled after all.
My first computer was a sinclair ZX81 with 1k or ram. (That was the UK name of your T1000 I believe) Yep. Whole 1k of memory. I eventually bought a 16k memory module that almost doubled the physical size of the computer and allowed me to install a Z80 assembler which was my first encounter with 'programming'.
As a kid I was always taking things apart to see how they worked and putting them back together using wrong parts just to see what would happen - a bit like that evil kid in Toy Story !! Then I started taking my car apart - just to see what would happen if... wrecked the engine.
Messing with software was just an extension of that - building things and taking them apart again. Except doing it with software didn't always wreck the car, TV, fridge, video etc etc.
Till one day somebody said to me "Wouldn't it be could if we could connect all those lathes to this computer...." and the rest is history.
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Jun 6th, 2012, 10:40 AM
#26
Re: Poll - Quick show of hands
Originally Posted by techgnome
Somewhere I think I might even have a Timex Sinclair T1000 .... has a whopping 1k, BASIC, integrated keyboard and uses a tape recorder for storage. Now that was fun times.
-tg
Actually my very first encounter with programming was a Timex Sinclair T1000
My brother found one at a yard sale, thought I might like it and got it for me. No manual but it had words on the keys like If Then Print unfortunately the Then key was broken so it was pretty limited what you could do but I still played around and wrote some simple programs on it. A few years later another brother found one that all the keys worked on and got it for me. It was great. I spent many hours on it and wrote what at the time seemed like a fairly sophisticated program.
My first real venture into program was with the C64 which I used for about a year and a half then moved up to an Amstrad 512 and GW Basic.
I had a lot of fun with that old Timex and even more with the C64, that was a great little machine for what it was.
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Jun 6th, 2012, 10:51 AM
#27
Re: Poll - Quick show of hands
My career started as a mainframe data input operator back in 1980.
The only and only qualification for that job was the ability to be a fast, accurate, typist.
A couple of years after I started, my department bought a IBM XT desktop with a heartstopping 10MB, internal, hard drive. No one had a flippin' clue what to do with this thing, so I volunteered to give it whirl. I've been programming on PCs ever since (I have a bachelor of arts degree in English and I learned how to type in Journalism classes. I took college math 101 for total morons as a second semester senior because I had gone through 3 and 1/2 years of college without ever taking any math. I figured I could just scoot right by that, but my application for graduation got denied because I had not fulfulled all of my General Education requirements, which included at least one 3 hour class in Math )
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Jun 6th, 2012, 10:53 AM
#28
Fanatic Member
Re: Poll - Quick show of hands
Originally Posted by DataMiser
. . . . . unfortunately the Then key was broken so it was pretty limited what you could do . . . .
Wow - if the 'Then' key didn't work I wouldn't have been able to 'anything' with sinclair basic. I mean every 'If' was followed by a 'then' and without a 'then' key then all you have is a wedge to jam under the door on a hot day
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Jun 6th, 2012, 11:43 AM
#29
Re: Poll - Quick show of hands
Yeah it could not do much. I remember thinking if only that key worked I could do a lot more
I still enjoyed working with it.
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Jun 6th, 2012, 01:01 PM
#30
Re: Poll - Quick show of hands
Originally Posted by DataMiser
Giving away your age just a bit
Missed this comment. In reply, I would say: I'll give away as much of that as I possibly can! Would you like some?
My usual boring signature: Nothing
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Jun 6th, 2012, 01:05 PM
#31
Re: Poll - Quick show of hands
Originally Posted by Shaggy Hiker
Missed this comment. In reply, I would say: I'll give away as much of that as I possibly can! Would you like some?
I've got plenty so no thanks
I would be happy to give away some as well.
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Jun 10th, 2012, 06:32 AM
#32
Fanatic Member
Re: Poll - Quick show of hands
Originally Posted by techgnome
I initially learned on an Apple IIe ... at home I had an original I.B.M. PC 4.77Mhz started with two 5" floppies
........
Somewhere I think I might even have a Timex Sinclair T1000 .... has a whopping
-tg
This is beginning to sound that monty python 'old men, hard times' sketch.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Four_Yorkshiremen_sketch
1k of memory?..... Luxury! We had 'no' memory... Or processor..... We had to write in Mud! There were 23 of us living in a soggy concurrent CPM box under the pier waiting for the tide to go out when we'd rush out and write noughts and ones in t'sand and then rush off to find the client to see if we could get paid before t'tide came back in again. And when we got back to t'box our managers would thrash us t sleep with seaweed and dance on our beds singing "Hallelujah, Int 21 is coming"
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Jun 11th, 2012, 06:57 AM
#33
Re: Poll - Quick show of hands
I did my first programming on a casio calculator. I made it say boobies.
I never had a ZX81 but I did start on a spectrum with a whopping 48k and few enough keywords to give one an actual key. I must admit I mostly used the Load key (which I seem to remember was J?) followed by a couple of quote marks but I also enjoyed typing in the demo programs you could get in the magazines in those days. They almost never worked and I've been told since that they used to deliberately leave errors in the to keep you on your toes. I don't know if that's actually true though.
1k of memory?..... Luxury! We had 'no' memory... Or processor..... We had to write in Mud! There were 23 of us living in a soggy concurrent CPM box under the pier waiting for the tide to go out when we'd rush out and write noughts and ones in t'sand and then rush off to find the client to see if we could get paid before t'tide came back in again. And when we got back to t'box our managers would thrash us t sleep with seaweed and dance on our beds singing "Hallelujah, Int 21 is coming"
Mud? Mud?! We 'ad to write in rock, with oor bare 'ands. And we 'ad to use Roman Numerals so t't nought weren't available. And we thought oorselves lucky!
The best argument against democracy is a five minute conversation with the average voter - Winston Churchill
Hadoop actually sounds more like the way they greet each other in Yorkshire - Inferrd
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Jun 12th, 2012, 11:10 PM
#34
Hyperactive Member
Re: Poll - Quick show of hands
Originally Posted by techgnome
I had to go with the too early option... because I'm about 25% formal training, 25% self-taught, and 50% experience ... in retrospect, I shouldn't have voted... but oh well. At any rate, most of what I know I've picked up from reading things and then experimenting and just trying things to see what works and what doesn't.
-tg
So similar to your porn exposure really
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