April 2011
7 posts
I have my own word
be·hou·sel - (bĭ-hou’zəl) -verb (used with object), -seled, -sel·ing
Definition: To unimpress or underwhelm esp. so as to make obvious to faults or shortcomings:
Usage: “Audiences were behouseled by The Phantom Menace.”
Related forms: be·hou·sel·ment, noun be·hou·sel·ing·ly, adverb
What's the most fun you've ever had programming?
During the dot-com bubble in the late ’90s I worked at a startup company called OpenWorlds, just me and a few other programmers in a small office. We were building a toolkit for using VRML and X3D, which is a kind of 3D version of the HTML that powers the world wide web. VRML never took off, for many reasons that seem obvious now, but at the time people were excited about anything...
If there is one thing you learned along the way...
To be really successful in this business, you need to be more than just a programmer. You need people skills, communication, and empathy. You need creativity and curiosity — never stop reading and learning. You need to be a critical thinker, and a problem solver.
Get out in the world and meet people who are not programmers, and understand their needs, and build software that...
If you knew then what you know now, would you...
Yes! In fact, I majored in Electrical and Computer Engineering in college. This involved lots of circuit design, robotics, electronics, power systems, etc. I got a minor in computer science almost as an afterthought. But if I knew then what I know now, I would have majored in Computer Science instead. Today’s hardware is complicated stuff, and I realized about halfway through getting...
What was your first professional programming gig?
One of the best decisions I made was to go to Drexel University for my undergraduate degree, because they basically require everyone to go on internships. You get your degree in 5 years, but for the middle three years you alternate between 6 months of class and 6 months of paid internship. Drexel even had a required class for all freshmen to teach you how to write a resume, how to...
What languages have you used since you started...
Wow, that’s a long list. At my first job, I mostly updated other people’s programs using C, C++, Visual Basic, and even a little FORTRAN. I started to learn Ada, because at the time I thought it would be the next big thing. Throughout college, I actually majored in Electrical Engineering, so we had to learn other kinds of programming languages that most programmers don’t bother with —...
What was the first real program you wrote?
I remember playing a prank on my dad when I was a little kid. The Commodore 64’s had an overheating issue where sometimes random exclamation marks would start to appear on the screen. Using the RND, PEEK, and POKE commands, I figured out how to clear the screen and start putting those ‘!’ symbols all over the place. My dad initially got mad, thinking he would have to return yet another...