"Ant" <not@home.today> wrote in message
news:BNmdnafAKawjAybWnZ2dnUVZ7qednZ2d@brightview.c o.uk...
> "FromTheRafters" wrote:
>
>> I've been computering since 1972. Programming in BASIC, FORTRAN,
>> ALGOL,
>> and COBOL. No IBM cards involved (did have paper tape though). I
>> believe
>> Ant has been doing this longer than I. I may claim an earlier date,
>> but
>> I believe he was "hands-on" where I was via teletype.
>
> Very much hands on, in fact I ruled the computer room (or thought I
> did). An early BOFH, but not so much of a *******! I soon taught
> myself Fortran and assembler and tested it on the machines during
> idle-time. Then moved in to programming full-time and learnt a few
> more languages on the way. These days, I'm mostly into C and x86 asm.

Once you have the concept of how computer languages work, you can be
better equipped to choose the right one for a project. I started out
with a library book on machine language programming, and was intrigued
by how assembler mnemonics made it easier to program. Spaghetti coding
in BASIC led me to the more structured languages.

....then, due to a small 'inciting to riot' conviction, shifted into
electronics technician (ET) instead of data systems technician (DS) upon
joining the US Navy. That gave me some hardware experience to go along
with the rest. All-in-all, I haven't done much programming.