How many people are professional programmers? (yes or no)

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If no, did you try picking up a programming language? Was it difficult?

I've had jobs where I did a little bit of programming, though mostly I've done it for my own enjoyment, ever since I was in my teens.

How hard to pick up? Impossible to say, really - the only way to find out is to give it a go and see how you get on. I think that if a person can pick up one programming language, they are usually able to apply their skills to another relatively easily.

If you want to give it a go, I'd recommend a scripting language like Python or Ruby to begin with. These require fewer tools than compiled languages and you can see the results of your code changes much quicker. That makes it easier to concentrate on the principles of programming, rather than getting distracted by setting up the tools that you use. Everything you need is available on-line for free, and there are loads of on-line tutorials etc. to help get you started.

Professional programming, no. I dont work, and even if I did, nobody in their right mind would hire me. Particularly since I cant code anything without it being all sorts of messy and disorganized.

I am however contracted to an indie game dev, and assisted in making a game (which released) and am now at work on an expansion for it (not due for awhile). This does consist of alot of programming, but it's all in a scripting language (XML) and as usual, anything I make is disorganized and confusing to everyone else though.

Nobody seems to mind, however. One way or another, I produce good results.


I dunno that I'd be good at "full" programming though. Cant handle things like math worth a crap. I mean, seriously, I cant do any of it. Basic multiplication is as far as I go, and I'll often screw it up. Ask me to do division and you'll get a blank stare. So I dont even understand most of that, and as far as I know, when it comes to full programming, there's a ton of math involved. I really hate math.

It's not something I enjoy so I'd hate it as a job to wake up to every day. The basics weren't difficult but I think it would have been easier to advance if I found it interesting or enjoyable.

Does used to be back in the day count?. If so yes. While I still love bieng on computers I have moved on.

I'm no programmer.

If I would immerse myself in this sort of thing, I think I'd do pretty well, though.

I started with modding windows exe resources and HTML5 and JAVA.

After I got married I gave up teaching for a while and went to work in software engineering. After a few years I eventually became a senior analyst programmer and Oracle DBA. It was great fun - getting paid to play around with code and big databases and make things work right - it's like money for nothing! I did really enjoy it.

As much as I like to advertise what I'm good at, and just how knowledgeable I am, programming is not within my skill set, and I know only the theoretical concept of what it involves.

Yes. COBOL

I am a professional programmer / dba / developer / and have been for over 10 years.

I pretty much develop all our programs / websites from concept to deployment on my own (including any graphic work / databases etc).

It really helps when programming is a special interest.

I am usually left alone in my office, which is preferred, but on occasion I will need to attend a meeting. I used to hate this, but then I realized I am only asked to attend because I am the only one that would speak up to the "Suits" and flaw there logic before telling them how it had to be done.

Not a programming language, but I did start teaching myself HTML in 7th grade. Learned enough by the time 9th grade came around that I could make a crappy looking website. Decided to try and get a degree in programming when I went to college. Went through some troubles and didn't really like it so I switched to networking. The languages I struggled with were visual basic and rpg iv. I also took an SQL class and really liked it, but I'm not sure if SQL is considered a programming language.

Yeah, I'm a database programmer for a law firm.

I find programming super-easy up to a certain point, but then it suddenly becomes way too complicated. It tends to feel like most people who could get to my level of skill were able to easily get to better levels of skill, so I'm not sure what I need to do to get past this "ceiling."

It can involve a lot of math. It varies depending on what sort of thing you're trying to program, so you could probably do a lot of programming but still be limited too much to do it for a career. I will say, you pretty much never need to do any arithmetic. Instead you design algebra-like instructions for the computer to do arithmetic with; this requires understanding arithmetic but not actually doing arithmetic. Personally, I'm bad at arithmetic but good at algebra and geometry, so it works out fine for me. In my job, the expressions are usually fairly simple adding and subtracting, with the occasional multiplying, and division is rare. But as a hobby, I try to make video games, and then I end up in geometry and trigonometry.

On the other hand, I once saw a discussion about why math knowledge was considered important for programming, and it seemed like most of the programmers answering were talking about it from an obscure theoretical angle, like people who are good at the logic required of programming are also good at math or something. I'm surprised written language isn't considered important (for getting all the punctuation right!).

No. Don't know the first thing about it. And when I hear people talking about programming and writing code and all that, it seems very far beyond my grasp.

Professional? No... but...

I ran my own software company when I was 15. I used to write utilities for Bulletin Board Systems. (BBS). When I was 20 I wrote an entire Point of Sale system for a corporate chains and a few small businesses. I'm still in IT now, but in development, QA, Hardware side of things.

It was easy and just came to me instantly. I could write 30,000 lines of code in a night straight out of my head without having written anything down or planned anything in advance. I could just "see" the code and it came out.

i'm not a programmer, but i enjoy working with css and think i'd be able to get into programming