How did you end up as a programmer?

[Intense Degree]

Not that I'm much of a programmer, but my way in was similar to many people here, BASIC at around 8 or 9 years old on an Amstrad CPC 6128.

The system came with a huge book on BASIC which included a large glossary of keywords and examples, some lessons and quite a few sample programs you could type in yourself (mostly rubbish games) and play around with. Just thinking about it makes me want to go on ebay and track a copy down!

I can still remember how cool I thought it was to find and change the line "Lives = Lives - 1" in various games - NOW I AM INDESTRUCTIBLE!

Other than that, the only things I have spent any serious time with are QBasic and AGS script, despite having dabbled but never really got into a few other things.

[CaptainD]

Not that I've ENDED UP as a programmer as such, because after a while dabbling in AGS I decided that I would never be more than a vaguely competent coder, so I get others to do the dirty work based on my designs...   BUT...

First attempts - ZX81 BASIC.  Pretty much just copying stuff out of books, running, hoping there wasn't a dot out of place or the dodgy power pack didn't fall off again.

Commodore 16 and Spectrum +2 - I experimented a little.  Mainly with kaleidoscope style graphics with the LINE command within nested FOR...NEXT loops.  You know what I'm talking about.

Atari ST - this is where my first serious attempts at programming lay.  The bundled ST BASIC was pretty poor, but I learnt a bit from using it.  Then I got STOS.  This was a major breakthrough (though due to its inherent design a little limited compared to the later Amiga version AMOS, which was much more along the lines of GFA BASIC, which I never really got on with).  I eventually made a couple of pretty decent games with STOS, but by that time the ST market had crashed and my dreams of becoming a 16-bit game programmer / designer came to nought.  Made lots of prototypes that never really got very far.  (Also tried and nearly - but not quite - succeeded in programming a bespoke stock management program - also in STOS.  Just couldn't quite get the hand of formatting the data arrays for printing well enough for some reason.)

PC - Dabbled with AGS (2.71 I think), did a bit, lost all my data when my computer died, didn't have enough interest to redo it all.  Later I learnt JustBasic (the freeware little brother of Liberty BASIC) and made a reasonable little text-only parody RPG and decent-ish Light Cycles game (always wanted to make one of those things!), but neither the language nor my own ability was going to be good enough to do anything really impressive.  My continuing love of adventure games eventually led me back to AGS, where after some more dabbling, I came to realise that I should stick to the bits of game creation that I could actually be good at - and programming was not one of these things.

So there you have it.  The story of my programming non-life!

[Ponch]

Basic, thanks to RUN magazine. I am incredibly old!

C-64 machine, I should add.

[Nikolas]

My father had bought an HP old computer (the HP-150) back in 1983 (when I was around 6 years old), and since he couldn't find any software to actually use (I remember that that HP was particularly NOT compatible to anything out there...), so he was forced to learn programming (GW-Basic) and make stuff there.

Well... I followed lead and a few years later we got an Amsstrad 1512 which was, finally IBM compatible, so we could run games and the such.

I did start programming on my own around around the age of 10, even made a few games (one of which was nice enough I'd like to think), but that's about it.

I never picked up anything new about programming and never cared to do so. I'm too much of a musician I think.

[Calin Leafshade]

BASIC on a BBC Micro which were amazing.

I distinctly remember trying to make a quiz type program and not understanding why this wouldnt work:

Code: basic

IF $ANSWERGIVEN < $ANSWER THEN

The answers were things like capital cities.

[Billbis]

Code: C

if(Answer %in% CorrectAnswers) {
    ...
}

R beauty.

[faerieevenstar]

I don't call myself a programmer at all!! I'm an ARTIST and a game addict. The first programming I ever did was level skip cheat on my BBC Micro at about four or five, which was so easy. Find the line of code and edit it. I wanted to play all of Repton, but had no patience. I've never gained patience! I even learnt a bit of Basic on the PC (in fact I had to write a short program in basic to get my computing badge at Brownies! Hahah!) , but beyond spits and spots of HTML and LINUX stuff, I've not learnt any more. I can barely remember any of old programming anyway now :\

The biggest bit of coding I ever worked on was a joint project with my brother- we were writing Blue Meanie out line by line from BBC Micro User magazine. We NEVER finished it. Ever. We would also work on game where he did the code and I would make the sprites- that is where my love affair with drawing for games began

[Tournk]

BASIC on ZX Spectrum (aka Sinclair), then QBasic under MS DOS, then began to self teaching myself C++ using books borrowed from my friend (this reminds me, I never actually returned them back, lol).

Really?   What happened to that friend?


So, everyone here have started learning how to code really early. I'm jealous of that because at the age of 10 or 11 I didn't even dared to care about anything. I am ashamed.

For me though, I got into programming after looking in the internet for a free game engine last year. I found AGS and started to make some games. It was so hard at first. But after a few weeks reading the manual I finally understood a little bit of coding. I use simple codes only, mainly to make the character animate.

Then earlier this year I started liking the idea of coding games after getting inspired by some of the contents of the AGS forum. I started learning C++ from an e-book. And really, whoa! Now that's what int and string really mean! I was estatic when my codes worked in the AGS editor. I devoured much much info from the book until I got to the chapter of pointers. I was immidietly dumbfounded.. I quit learning and sometimes even have a look until I get a crazy headache.

I still do a bit programming, but only less complicated codes... 

Maybe I should learn C first?

[Radiant]

Maybe I should learn C first?

Not particularly, no. Thinking in object orientation is a good skill, and that works better with C++.

It's ok if you don't get pointers; it takes most people years to get pointers. They're not necessary for most programming tasks, including game design. You'll build up experience over time, don't worry about it

[Crimson Wizard]

BASIC on ZX Spectrum (aka Sinclair), then QBasic under MS DOS, then began to self teaching myself C++ using books borrowed from my friend (this reminds me, I never actually returned them back, lol).

Really?   What happened to that friend?

I heard he became a military surgeon .

Maybe I should learn C first?

Not particularly, no. Thinking in object orientation is a good skill, and that works better with C++.

That really depends on what kind of programs you want to work with. If you are up to making games, scripting languages could be better choice (like Lua). It was in the old times when every group of programmers created their games from scratch, now most of them use existing engines, I think, because that's much faster.

Writing low-level code (like libraries and engines) is very different from high level code (graphic interface, business logic, game design). It requires certain approach, certain mood even. Not everyone can do both well.

BTW C++ is known to be a pretty difficult language to write good programs. In some way C could be simplier, but is far less safe. Also C is built around concepts that are not very popular nowadays ("bare" pointers, unsafe data conversion and manual memory management).
People say that it is good to learn several popular languages, because that increases the chances to find good job, also you get varied experience. So you may end learning both C and C++. But that is important if you are going to become a full-time developer, and maybe not so if you want this just for a hobby.

[geork]

I feel like a fresh upstart who has no right to comment on this thread, since I first coded in Javascript when I was 14, on Windows XP By the time I finished my project I could understand the whole book I taught myself from (Java (Something) For Dummies), but still had no idea how to combine the compiler and IDE properly, so none of my code could execute. Then this new-fangled fancy AGS comes along and combines it in an easy package

[bgordebak]

Basic, thanks to RUN magazine. I am incredibly old!

C-64 machine, I should add.

Same here, BASIC on a C64, and I'm very old. I couldn't ever use the whole screen though. I needed some POKE commands I guess, or use Assembly maybe. Never got to that. And there was no internet, as some younger ones might not believe.

I remember making a sprite which dances with my joystick moves. Fun times. *sigh*

Edit: I recommend anyone starting out that try a lot of languages, and stick with the one gives you most fun for some time. In the end it doesn't matter, because you have to learn to "think" like a machine first.