Why did you start programming or what got you into programming?

[Flikm]

My story is pretty interesting. One day, I was exploring on my cousins computer and found a program called "Methodus Toolz". It was an AOL spoof type thing that screwed with AOL kicking people off and junk. When I got home, I went to the site and downloaded it. I started browsing around the site and found a section called, "Make Programs Like This" or something. Guess what happened, I CLICKED!!!! I found out it was made in VisualBasic and tried to find it. Then I discovered Qbasic on my computer. I opened it up and was a bit disappointed to find a text editor and thought, "how the hell am I gonna make a program with this?". Well, I gave up after a while but then, my friend(he gave up programming) told me how programming works. That's when I started Qbasic.

I know it's long .

[mithrandir]

I was ordered to by the government. They performed a ritualistic shaving of my genitals and insisted I then program computers, lest they'd use hot wax next time.

Jokes...serioulsy, I had to take it for a university subject, as part of my IS degree.

[Fordy]

I do it for fun (?) - I dont even work with computer design, well I occasionally write access databases for the business's I work for (though I find these tedious most of the time). My career is more finance based.

But then I am young, and I do plan to bring more of my hobby into my career as I go on.

[nvoigt]

It started back when I had an Atari ST. I saw my cousin doing
great stuff in his computer science class ( in the equivalent to
highschool, he's one year older than me ), so I started
programming, too. I fooled around with Omicron Basic, did some
programs which printed jokes and stuff... Later I did a full GUI
for a character generator for AD&D I played religiously at that
time. Then came my own programming classes in Turbo Pascal.
Text Adventures. Lousy ones
I decided to do programming as a career and went to another
school ( equiv. to BSc ), which taught C/C++, VB, ASM and some
other useful things.

[gamegod3001]

I first looked into programming after I beat sonic the headghog 2 for the milonth time. Fully expacting to be able to make games for the genesis I searched the internet, boy was I in for a sirprise. Luckly one of my first results (if not the first) was the article on how to make a game on gamedev.net.

So I went to softseek and browsed around for a compiler, that would fit on a floppy. And sure enought I found one. So I downloaded it and brought it to this computer only to find out that it was a zip file. Witch this computer did not have. So I nearly forgot about it beliving that I would never get what I need.

Then last summer I browsed through a book on ms-dos commands and discoverd qbasic. So I did a search and found tons of information on it. So I instaled it off the cd and and started typing. I never did very much though only ever make a donkey kong clone.

Finaly last christmas I got the internet as a gift. So I downloaded bloodshed (witch I belive I learned about from this site) and looked at the tutorials. Then I read a few more but none of them were as good. Board I decided to cheak out the message board and discoverd the FAQ, and the e-boook C++ in 21 days 2nd edtion. Now I spend to much time on these boards.

I still haven't made any games for the genesis

[RobS]

Because I wanted to know how Elite or Repton or Solstice or Chuckie Egg or Yie Ar Kung Fu or any other of my then favourite games worked.

So I started looking at BASIC, but gave up mostly due to some complete unsufferable people at school where the whole thing become more effort than was possibly worth while. Especially when there were people who owned books on machine code.

Then came the imb PC era which kind of started to pass me by as we never got one of these at home, I was still kind of interested but I was going down the dangerous but cool route of NES then SNES.

Then my dad decided he needed a PC at home so he could occassionally be there rather than at the office so got a PC around 5 years ago.

I dabbled a bit in QBASIC but didn't really get anywhere.

Then I went to University were during the course of my Physics degree I had to learn C and G/LabView and have since become employed to do it and would love to drum up the enthuiasm\time\money to learn how to use C++.

[adrianxw]

At university I was using a stats package to try and correlate various physical characteristics of a number of paleozoic fish fossils. Being a student, i.e. completely lazy, I got fed up with going through the routine of setting up each run. I chatted up one of the computer jockeys and found out how to automate the process using JCL.

[Witch_King]

I started a couple years ago because I went back to school. I've always wanted to be a 'Horror' writer, not a programmer, but programming isn't half bad, and it's getting more interesting as I progress. Writing is a lot more difficult.

In my soul though I love creatures such as vampires, werewolves, and the mummy. This began when I was a child. I especially enjoy gothic horor, and not so much all they types of horror that existed in the 90's such as psychopathic serial killer stuff. I think that the 80's were much better for horror. Even the music of the 80's was more suitable for horror themes. Yeah, I really wanted to be a writer. I couldn't do it. If I ever had time for a hobby than it would involve writing horror. Maybe I'll try again.

[Aran]

Ever since i got my first PC (that ran on DOS and you had to go through a system of crappy menus to get to Windows3.1) i became interested in how it worked. Well, i was lazy back then and didn't do anything about it because i didn't feel like looking up all of that random computer jargon that i didn't know at the time (and i didn't have the internet).

Well, after 3 years of forgetting about it i signed up for a comp sci course freshmen year in high school and learned turbo pascal, which i excelled in and was the best programmer in the class after a good two weeks. I passed everyone else by and learned stuff that we were never supposed to go into (i.e. procedures) and continued to learn until i decided that PASCAL wasn't adequate to make the game i was going to make. Well, after a few months of consideration i went out and bought SAMS Lear C++ in 24 Hours and read it through, picking everything up and learning very fast (i prolly got through the book in a week). Next i decided i needed some type of resource so i went out and picked up a copy of C++ In Plain English (an excellent book). From that i learned more about everything, and i finally learned how to operate the insertion and extraction operators. Now i'm greatly enjoying fooling around with C++ and beign the authority on programming in the sophmore class... i think i know more than most people in comp sci 4, and i'm only taking comp sci 1 this year.

Well, i love programming and it's been a hell of a good time doing it so far, i hope that it continues to be as fun and exciting as it has been.

[-KEN-]

well, I remember my first PC, some monochrome (Orange and black, I believe) IBM PC (maybe not IBM but IBM-compatible) with a dot-matrix printer that wasn't good for much more than typing up reports and printing. I always remember loving that thing, though. I always wanted to take it apart and see how it worked, but I knew my dad would be ........ed if I did. So sooner or later we got rid of that, and we got the first of our more "modern" PC's which was an old compaq runnig windows 3.1, which we upgraded to 95. I liked that one even more, and learned all sorts of neat things about computers using that.

So like 3 years ago we put that one upstairs and bought a PIII gateway (ha! the compaq was pre-pentium) which we got the internet (yay!!) on. Then I went to my friend's house and he showed me Sub7 (dundundun!). I remember really getting into hacking after that. Never skript kiddie-wise, though. Always wanting to learn more and more without resorting to use those types of programs. Then I went to www.happyhacker.org one day, and stumbled across the programming section of the GTMHH, and immediately I knew I wanted to program. At first I tried to find a fortran compiler, but decided against it. Then I found QBASIC on my old compaq and fiddled with it for a while, using only the cruddy help files. Needless to say I didn't get far, and once again went on a search for a fortran compiler.

I never did find one, but I DID find a link to the Miracle C compiler, and a small tutorial on the C language somewhere. I was immediately hooked. I went to a small bookstore soon after and bought C For Dummies, and went on my merry way programming up a storm, and absorbing everything I could find on the language. Then I typed in a few random URLS and found this site, and immediately asked my first board question, under the name "Chillin" - "How do I save things to disk?". Wasn't I a good little newbie and read the FAQ oh-so-well?

Oh well, the rest is history.

[Fool]

I started because it looked fun and interesting. When I got into it, I found that it was not the same old thing everyday. I like that kind of change. I just can't wait until I can do it as a career

-Fool

[rick barclay]

I had a copy of VS 6 and four months of free time over the past winter. What the hell, might as well. It led me here. I have no
regrets.

rick barclay

[ArseMan]

I started because I wanted to make a mod for half-life. I had read someplace that they had used c++ to make them so I searched for compilers and eventually found one. I then searched for tutorials and found this site. That was about 6 months ago.

[Procyon]

I was in 6th grade, and very much into console role-playing games. After finishing a couple, I decided I wanted to make my own. I first tried paper-and-pencil, but I found that dice-and-pencil mechanics and the lack of any sort of visual display were just too limiting. So, I told my parents I wanted to try to make a game on our computer. They got me a QBasic book and I slowly taught myself that over the next few years. However, the language was just too limiting after a while, so I purchased a C text and C compiler during high school and taught myself that as well. I enrolled in a C++ course (my first programming course ever) in my first year of college.

I'm still working on that RPG.

[ehsiq]

I took a project for my "applications for microprocessors". It was
something with clear the noise from some measurements and
then pass the signal to an A/D and D/A through the
microcontroller...
I loved it...i made the C++ part...cleaning the noise...
The only problem is that i am not much into OOP.
anyway, after i finish electronics i will start programming...
hope one day to be my profession...