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Programmers

Posted: Wed Jan 04, 2006 8:59 am
by RayBritton
Just wondering how many people here program for a living

Posted: Wed Jan 04, 2006 1:10 pm
by Patz QuickBASIC Creations
BASIC wouldn't be the language most modern day programmers would use for huge corporate-size programs. C++, JAVA, Python, PERL, etc. would all be better languages for these types of projects.

Posted: Wed Jan 04, 2006 2:26 pm
by Nodtveidt
Visual Basic remains the world's most-used modern commercial language, followed closely by C++ and then Java. COBOL still the most installed though. Some claim that PHP is the world's most used language but this is mere science fiction right now, and the same goes for those who believe C++ is the most widely used in commercial applications. Fact is: VB has the market dominance out of all modern languages. It's BASIC. :P

To answer the thread though: nope, not anymore...

Posted: Wed Jan 04, 2006 3:58 pm
by Z!re
I do.. in FreeBASIC..

Posted: Thu Jan 05, 2006 3:47 am
by Guest
really...in freebasic
can't log in again

Posted: Fri Jan 06, 2006 3:55 pm
by PlayerOne
When I am actually making a living I do, yes.

I have used COBOL, VB, C++ and Java at various times. The languages I use at home don't always have much to do with what I use at work. My last few home projects have used FB, Assembly and GameMaker.

Posted: Fri Jan 06, 2006 7:55 pm
by Guest
I've been programming for a living since 1961.

Recently, until early 2003, I spent 7 years at McGraw-Hill programming an ERP system in PickBasic which is very similar to QB except for I/O commands that access a multivalued database.

Later I spent 1.5 years as a consultant at a subsidiary of Citigroup, where I was involved in more administrative IT functions. However, I did a considerable amount of QB programming on my own to solve problems that could only be done by program, in my opinion. The IT department had 62 people, none of which knew how to program. The actual programming was outsourced. They were amazed at the things that I could do with a little QB program.

My contract expired several months ago, and I'm now looking for another job.
*****Moneo*****

For a Living...

Posted: Mon Jan 09, 2006 12:19 pm
by Zim
From about 1976 until 1995 I worked for a couple of different civil engineering firms. Part of my time was spent on software for civil engineers and surveyors, modifying existing, and writing new programs. My "pride and joy" is a coordinate geometry package for surveyors written entirely in QuickBASIC v3.0 consisting of about 2000 lines of source in 4 modules. The whole thing ended up in one .EXE file with a separate text "help" file that the program could access. You could define or compute up to about 8000 3-D points with x- and y- coordinates in double precision and elevations in single, plus point descriptions. Then you can do distance, angle, and intersection comps from there. I know they're still using it, too.

Posted: Wed Jan 11, 2006 1:26 pm
by matt2jones
I do not, but intend to, and can't really see myself working as anything else. I'm in college at the moment studying ~programming, and my weekly income comes from the programming competitions held here, with cash prizes for the winners (me and my friend have been coding since... me, 12 and him, 9)... So we win every week... It's not much, but it gets me by...

matt

Posted: Wed Jan 11, 2006 3:03 pm
by {Nathan}
Started programming at 9? Whoa! Me too!

Posted: Sun Jan 15, 2006 8:18 am
by matt2jones
Started programming ANSI C via the command line at 9 btw...

matt

Posted: Mon Jan 16, 2006 1:52 am
by Hrothgar
It's purely a hobby. Maybe someday if I'm better at it and have no other work. But for now I don't want to ruin my fun by making it work.

Posted: Sun Feb 12, 2006 2:19 pm
by leeor_net
BASIC wouldn't be the language most modern day programmers would use for huge corporate-size programs. C++, JAVA, Python, PERL, etc. would all be better languages for these types of projects.
That all depends on what the program is needed for. While I would never use BASIC in a dos box ever again (e.g., QuickBASIC), Visual Basic is great for DB/XML programs that need very rapid development.

I use C/C++ for all of my high-performance applications as well as DLL libraries that I can then use within Visual Basic. I use VB whenever I want to write a program that works with the Windows GUI (coding Win32 GUI stuff in C/C++ is a nightmare)

EDIT: I forgot to mention that I write software professionally.

Posted: Sun Feb 12, 2006 10:53 pm
by thegrogen
Nathan1993 wrote:Started programming at 9? Whoa! Me too!
Same here! I still have a 3.5inch floppy disk full of old QB programs I wrote at that age. Ah, the memories... (of spaghetti code *shudder)

BTW I don't program for a living, but I'm planning to when I get out of college. I'm planning to go work for some game company somewhere, rise up in the ladder... then break off and start my own company.

Posted: Sun Feb 12, 2006 11:16 pm
by leeor_net
work for some game company somewhere, rise up in the ladder... then break off and start my own company.
Good luck. I hope you're prepared for the competition. It's a true nightmare. Not to mention that most of the larger companies require you to sign a contract of some sort essentially forcing you to agree not to open a similar company for some specified amount of time (5 years seems to be the standard).

I do game programming myself but only in my spare time as of now. For the time being I'm writting software for a mining equipment export company based in New Jersey. It's not flashy like game programming but certainly creates a challenge.

BTW, just in case anyone is interested, the current project I'm working on (in terms of game programming) is called Outpost 3:

http://genesis.outpost-universe.net

Posted: Mon Feb 13, 2006 8:43 am
by lurah-
No i dont.
Programming is a great hobby but doing it for living...not for me.

I have earned something small...like fwe hours salary or one holiday when i have done something small for our company but thats top "pro" level im interested to code.

Posted: Tue Feb 14, 2006 5:29 am
by Seb McClouth
Not for a living... I'm working with homeless ppl... and I use programming to reduce stress (doesn't really work all the time).
I started programming in the early 90's...

grtz

Posted: Sun Feb 19, 2006 6:28 pm
by bungytheworm
Seb McClouth wrote:Not for a living... I'm working with homeless ppl... and I use programming to reduce stress (doesn't really work all the time).
I started programming in the early 90's...

grtz
What kind of work with them?