sutton050

Harping back to my prior post about learning to program, when I spoke at my old Uni, I spoke to a lovely trio of ladies, whom wanted to be programmer/computer folks... And one thing struck me, was how narrow their knowledge was. When they asked me how I got into programming and I explained that when I learned to program in the 1990's there was no github, indeed there was no internet, you could not just go and download a program or join an open source project.  If you wanted tool, and had no BBS dial up to find someone with something like it, you wrote your own. I wrote code to record kills in games on the Atari ST, I wrote text editors for the ST and DOS (EGA graphics FTW), I write 2D painting programs for DOS.... I distinctly remember my college tutor seeing my using DOS interrupt 11 to control the mouse and his saying "you're the first person I've seen work that out"... I didn't work it out by trial and error though, I worked it out by reading, about the DOS...

I was asked this very interesting question this week... "Can you learn to be a programmer?"... Lets be clear, the question is can you be a programmer, not can you learn to program.  I believe anyone can learn to use a programming language, to drive their computer to perform a task for them, after all computers are tools and everyone can learn to use any tool. Be a person trying to write a batch script, create a spreadsheet to do their home accounts, throwing together some python to process a few text files or creating a whole compiled program of some kind, pretty much anyone can make themselves, with a book, a little internet searching and enough time, appear on that bell-curve of skill. Does this therefore make everyone a programmer?  I think it most certainly does not.  I can pick up a saw and a hammer, I have in my time knocked out some dovetail joints and repaired the odd chest of draws, does that make me a carpenter?.. NOPE... And likewise, if that self same carpente...