The History Of Me
I have been working in IT since the late 1990s although I have been coding for a lot longer than that.
My first introduction to coding was as normal with the computers at school these were RML 380z's big clunky machines by todays standards with only a couple of 5 1/4 inch floppy drives. It was on these I first learnt BASIC.
Not long after I got my first home computer a Sinclair ZX-81 with its whopping 1k memory. I soon found that that was too small so upgraded to a 16k RAM pack. But on this I started to write programs in BASIC still finding this a little slow I progressed to learning the machine language Z80 coding on paper and working out the binary by hand.
The natural progression from here was obviously to the ZX Spectrum. Continuing with coding in BASIC but doing more and more in Z80 still by hand. It was then I came across a compiler and monitor things started to move more quickly now. Not needing to code by hand I could type directly into the compiler and use that to do the time consuming conversion to binary which now took seconds. But it was the monitor that opened things up combined with my inquisitive nature of taking things apart I started looking at the way games were coded. Finding patches to give you unlimited lives etc to your favorite game. Fixing that new fast loader and saving the game into a slow loader so at least it now loaded every time and did not get to the last block of code only for the volume level on the tape deck to be slightly out and crash the program.
When the Spectrum started to become too slow for what I was doing I progressed onto the Atari ST. After learning the machine language for the ST (68000) I started to code. Being fed up with the monitor that came with my compiler I soon realised that I needed to write my own. Which I did a mate of mine who also did a spot of coding now and then got a copy of it liked it and still uses it to my knowledge. Not knowing what to do next I came across a C compiler on a cover disk to some magazine or other and started playing with C. Pointers coming second nature with my understanding of machine language.
Next came my first PC and the dawnings of the internet. It was soon that I was doing studying to get a qualification in application programming in C and my first job in IT followed. Learning HTML and javascript followed by ASP I soon found myself working for an internet company.Picking up new technologies soon became the norm from PHP to JAVA. Still coding sites the bad old way with table layouts javascript plastering the sites to fix browser bugs and all the bad old hacks. Picking up C# and .NET on the way.
I have now relocated to Scotland and that is where I am now still learning still coding sites. But now I have seen the light of web standards, accessablity and unobtusive javascript.