programmers

Self taught. I'm not an expert programmer but when I was 13 I got very deep into Visual Basic for a year (though it's not a language I would recommend), I do a fair bit of Javascript now, and I intend to get into PHP.

Formal training can certainly be helpful, but the best way to learn programming is to do it. It'll take you time to write several significant programs and learn from your successes and failures with them, but that personal experience will be far more useful and reassuring than thousands of pages written by experts. Get interested in programming, and do some because it's fun (being a geek isn't necessary, but it helps ). Talk to other programmers and read other programs -- that's gotta be more important than any book or training course. I don't personally enjoy school, but of course putting in the years at a college will give you access to some jobs that require credentials, and it'll give you a deeper understanding of the field.

Is there a particular programming language or development field you're interested in at the moment, Wilso?

This has come up because of my work. As industrial electricians we basically get all the jobs that they can't fit into any other field. I've recently been given responsibility for setting up and mainting all the production computers at the Basic Oxygen Steelmaking plant where I work. And since I've started a lot of the other production machines around the plant are starting to fall into my lap. Since I'm already going to uni in my own time, it's given my an opportunity to get some supported training (employer paying the fees, getting a textbook allowance, time off WITH PAY to go to lectures). It means a total change of direction, but I only picked Biotechnology in the first place because alphabetically it was at the front of the science faculty book! And since I've only done very basic subjects, I'll be able to take the 24 credits I'll have earned by the end of this semester straight into a computer science degree. And I enjoy learning anyway. It'll be alot easier if I'm actually working in the field I'm learning. And the difference between this and say the chemistry subject I'm doing at the moment, I've got a ready made lab sitting on my desk at home and on my desk at work.

One point about employer financed training on employer time is that it is clearly a marketable field. Education in the sciences without advanced degrees has always been a bit iffy.

A bit of both; my Java is about %25 academic and the rest self-taught, I learned C++ in college but have given myself two refresher courses by myself(and done a lot better).

My C, PHP, VB, HTML, and JavaScript are all self-taught. With C#, JSP, and EJB hopefully to follow.

My C, VB, and Java (main) were self-taught.
For learning, one of the best ways, I think, is to try continuing elaborating one's own example to perfection within a limited time.

I'm not much of a programmer, but what little I know is self taught. I usually do this: Decide what I want to do, and tinker and experiment till it works.

C, VB I took classes. Basic, eaons ago, and assembly self-directed... (on a TRS-80 mind you...)
PC-DMIS, a little of both, and a LOT of practice.

But the language I have used most (MM4) I learned by being stuffed into a 8'x12' glass walled box on a factory florr for six months. A very good environment for self learning!

I was learning basic back on my old C64, almost had it down and was gonna get the cartridge to start learning assembly language, and then the thing died, and I never got around to learning any more. Now I'll be starting from scratch.

Mostly what I know is what I've taught myself. Trial and error. . .

I know DCL, I'd say at an expert level. DCL is the Digital Control Language, something like JCL for VAX mainframes/alpha servers. I have about five years doing that.

I also know VB 6.0. Well, useta know. Don't do it very much any more. Did that for about three years, concurently with the DCL. Took info on the mainframes and put into useable form for NT workstations. Fun. Not.

Now I'm doing VB for Access. Very simular to VB 6.0, but there are enough differences that make me nervous.

Messed around with Perl, and C++. Will probably take C++ an uni soon.

I was a self taught 6502, 6502A and Z80A pure code, machine code and assembly language programmer.
These are all 8 bit processors used in the home machines in the 80s so all my expertise went out with the ark basically.
I did some work for Software Projects in the early days but mainly I was the principal member of The Gang Of Four hackers.
I never, ever got the hang of all this procedural programming and as for this newfangled modular stuff....Well it's just not programming.
I mean, you don't prgram a computer with a mouse !! You do it with your guts and a keyboard !! And a cursor !!
Don't give me any of this "operating system" crap either.
Pah.
*sulks for a while*
Bloody statements and variables. Ha !
What happened to BINARY !!! Huh ? Huh ? Huh ?

All these modern "programmers" are fairies. They wouldn't know a ROL loop if it bit them on the arse.

*sulks for a bit longer*

WHILE/WEND my arse !

I took one look at C++ (which I like to call C+-, or C more or less), and decided it was time to become a systems administator. Yikes!

KEYBOARDS?!?!?! Come on Helio. Back in my day a real man used 12 toggle switches, a pushbutton and a row of LEDs....

Keyboard (phrrpht).

Yeah !!!!
Bring back the PDP-11 and the 960B machines !
I know all about those 16 switches and LEDs.

Yeah, a machine slightly larger than a side-by-side refridgerator, with all the power of a hand calculator! But the wonderful things you can do with papertape chad!

Nothing like getting a mylar chad in your eye. I miss those days....

...sure we do...

Ain't no flippin' A2K on a PDP-11!

No A2K...

But I do remember the joy of knowing where to type XYZZY and the frustration of being in "a maze of twisty little passages all alike..."

Computers have always been best at providing a way to spend hours not doing what you are supposed to be doing.

Ain't that the truth.

First time I saw Conway's Life... Three minutes per generation.

Rewrote for the TRS-80, but it was buggy... we called it Cancer.

Last time I saw it... well, it was fast indeed. Perhaps I should do a Google and find it again...