This one’s been floating around the internet (although I appear to be late on the trend). However, here goes:
How old were you when you started programming?
I was in 5th grade, so I was ten, I think.
How did you get started in programming?
My friend Logan and I decided we were going to create Tomb Raider 4, so we each bought copies of “Learn to Program Basic“.
We didn’t quite make it all the way to that particular game.
What was your first language?
Something InterPlay tried to pass off as Basic. My first profitable language was HTML, when I made a bowling website for my aunt Sue when I was 12.
What was the first real program you wrote?
I made a pretty extensive text-based RPG. It started on BASIC, then moved to my TI-83 during Trig class, and eventually evolved into Gevalum.
What languages have you used since you started programming?
BASIC, TI-83 BASIC, HTML (XHTML), Javascript, CSS, Java, C++, ASP.NET, C#, ActionScript, ASP, PHP, SQL, XML, VB.NET. I wouldn’t call myself proficient with several of the aforementioned, but I have used them.
What was your first professional programming gig?
I worked for a little 3-man web shop in Middletown, OH, doing ASP and SQL, mostly administrative back-ends to websites. It was the month after I turned 16.
If you knew then what you know now, would you have started programming?
Absolutely. I probably would have started with something like Java instead of Basic and PHP instead of ASP, though. I love development and wouldn’t trade it for any other job.
If there is one thing you learned along the way that you would tell new developers, what would it be?
Learn to use Google.
What’s the most fun you’ve ever had … programming?
My online game, Gevalum. Although it’s been surplanted by something else (a story which I may delve into sometime), I put two years into developing something I thought was fantastic. It went from ASP with frames to PHP with AJAX, and to watch it grow was fantastic.
That’s the end of the questions: there you have it.
