Your first computer language

[TrogL]

Poll question: Your first computer language

[sujan]

1. ASM

[prez_sux]

35. daaaayummmm

anybody who first learns assembly gets my respect.

[Tandalayo_Scheisskopf]

2. Swearing.

Lots of swearing.

[Birthmark]

3. Don't remember

The first computer I programmed was in 1974 in a High School computer course. It was one of those "time-share" deals. I can't begin to remember what language, though.

I had a Vic-20, too, when they came out. BASIC programming, and lots of it.

[disgruntella]

4. first language, Basic on AppleIIe

but my first love is PERL!

[short bus president]

6. Basic on Tandy TRS-80 n/t

d'oh!

[MaineDem]

5. I think it was called PL-1

...or something like that. I remember all these Nine's Compliments. Ewwww

[molly]

24. PL1 is combo of cobol and assembler

nine's compliments is used in both

[thermodynamic]

7. Logo, technically

The one with the dumb turtle...

Then came BASIC.

I'm good with scripting and just starting to learn visual basic, which is terribly fun to do...

I understand the languages and can generally reverse-engineer stuff, but as for the creativity to whip up something - that I often can't do, which is strange...

[Darranar]

10. Logo for me, too...

Interesting language-you can do a number of cool things with it.

[slackmaster]

8. ALGOL

On a Burroughs B7800 and I even got paid for it. The year was 1978.

[TheBigGuy]

9. BASIC...1972/73, high school...

via a honeywell teletype thingy with this telephone modem that connected our high school comptuer to the University of Louisville mainframe. the thing also used "tape", and the punch outs where used as confetti during the pep rallys.

[slackmaster]

15. Yeah, I used one of those machines with octal code on punch cards

Didn't consider it to be a real programming language, though you could write recursive procedures and recursive procedures and recursive... ...EOF

[MaineDem]

11. I remember punch cards. (n/t)

:-)

[dmr]

50. Me too and magnetic cards,

but that was for memory typewriters. They were a life saver in printing IV infusion labels - oh so many years ago.
:)

[MikeH]

12. FORTRAN

I took my first computer class in the spring of 1971 at San Diego State University, and submitted some FORTRAN programs with punched cards to the IBM 360 computer. I used FORTRAN subsequently at college and at different jobs until the early 1980's.

I also have used different Assembler languages, BASIC, and Pascal.

I have been using C and C++ almost exclusively since about 1988 or so.

[Syrinx]

13. Quickbasic

But if I were starting now, it would be Python.

[cmf]

14. Awww, the first time I programmed.

It was 1987 and I was in 6th grade. BASIC of course. Then in high school we learned Pascal. I'm having a hard time remembering why. In college as an engineering major, I learned the joys of FORTRAN 90. And finally as an intern at a newspaper's internet startup, I learned a nifty language called Perl. Then I graduated and never programmed again.

[SoCalDem]

16. none of the above

:(

[dweller]

19. yeah, same here

cussing doesn't count, nor unix, html...
:shrug:

dp

[greatauntoftriplets]

25. English?

Great Ah-nuld graphic, SoCalDem.

[lpbk2713]

17. TI - BASIC......

....first home computer was a Texas Instruments TI-99/4A about 20 years ago.

[BigMcLargehuge]

40. I had one of those too!!!

Ten hours to typing to make Mr. Bojangles dance.

Remember "Tunnels of Doom"

That game rocked

[Rabrrrrrr]

18. Just to be cleatr - BASIC, WAY before visual came out

BASIC starting ca. 1979 via TRS-80, then fortran, assembly, lisp, spice, fasp...eventually C, then C+, then java, perl...

[mike_c]

33. ahhh, the TRS-80...

...my first computer. All upper-case characters, and a nifty portable tape recorder too!

[DoYouEverWonder]

20. Just give me back my DOS prompt

Ah, the good old days when computers were so much simpler.

First computer was a mainframe by Qantel, then a Wang and then a DEC. The DEC was state of the art, with huge 10MB drums that you could pull out.

[NewYorkerfromMass]

48. BASIC, 1975 on a WANG

'course, this was Massachusetts so I'm sure Mr. Wang must have been giving them away to whoever would take 'em! :)

and when I said the same thing you did about DOS, a friend of mine touting WINDOWS responded: "WTF? that's like driving a car by reaching through the dashboard and into the hood" yeah, I guess.... :wtf:

[goobergunch]

21. QBASIC (n/t)

[prez_sux]

28. ditto

.

[TrogL]

22. Does paper count?

In high school, I took a "computer" course where we never actually did any computing. It was all theory. The library had a self-teaching book on FORTRAN than I went through. My first real computing was on a TI-99a hand-held calculator (about the size of a brick). It had conditionals so I count it as a "language" but it was more over-glorified machine code.

I also did some early work in something called PILOT (a teaching language) was working for Radio Shack when the trash80 came out (my boss said "make this work") but I quickly tired of its BASIC and went to Z80 ASSEMBLER. At teacher's college we had Apple II's, but I ended up using its ASSEMBLER as well.

My first paid work was in FORTRAN so I came full circle.

[molly]

23. Assembler (SPS), Autocoder, Cobol

yep - started out with 4K - ever hear of overlays?

binary - bit on bit off - then hexadecimal - I REALLY miss it.

[geniph]

26. Who the hell learned first on C++?

yikes!

BASIC, here.

[saline]

27. I know some...

...people who first learned programming with C++. Mainly we began with Basic (but I was the last year to do that) and now Visual Basic because thats where our school started us. Some people though just skipped computer programming and jumped right into AP Computer Science where they began with C++ because thats waht the test pretty well required. Now AP is taught in Java so everything is standardized (more or less) across the country.

BTW, Although I understand why Python isn't up there (it's hella new) I wish it was.

[TrogL]

42. Why Python isn't up there

I forgot. I probably would have lumped it in with Perl 'cause you're only allowed 10 choices. I probably should have lumped ADA in with PASCAL.

[prez_sux]

29. anyone who never programmed before going to college

to major in computer science.

some colleges start off with java.

[nuxvomica]

30. Basic on a Trash-80 and later on a TI-99/4A

In my working life I've used two wonderful languages no one here has probably ever heard of: PageComp and Progress 4GL. Early on, I wrote some elaborate stuff in Indirect MCR. I'll probably be using Java in the near future.

[dani]

31. BASIC - Atari 800

I also learned some of the 6502 instruction set. I mean assembly language.

[retread]

32. Assembly language. PAL assembler from Canada for C64.

Second language was Forth.

[Gato Moteado]

34. pascal was my first...

..system 370 assembler was my second.

my favorite right now is python, with perl a close second.

[DS1]

36. Apple BASIC

Gosub baby!

[alfredo]

37. Basic V on a big main frame.

Scripted after thatn HyperTalk, AppleScript, Perl. All nice.

[Feanorcurufinwe]

38. BASIC, in high school in the 70's

BASIC, in high school in the 70's. Dumb terminals, paper tape - it was a PDP 8/E.

[BigMcLargehuge]

39. Bandit Systems I and III Vertical Milling Machine Language

I also learned Daewoo Horizontal CNC Lathe Language

I was in the smart group of Machinists at my vocational high school so we learned CNC programming when it was just coming into the industry.

essentially it was a series of line numbers and on/off codes plus coordinates.

In retrospect the Bandit I and III languages were extremely intuitive and well designed for the task and the machines (from other vendors such as Bridgeport Milling Machine Co). These were also the first machines with a few K or internal memory so CNC programs could be stored without needing paper or magnetic tape.

The other really cool thing was when a program crashed the machine it ran could injur you.

[GabysPoppy]

41. Why isn't Pac-Man a choice?

[TrogL]

43. Two people (so far) had APL as a first language?

Now that's a learning curve.

http://www.engin.umd.umich.edu/CIS/course.des/cis400/apl/apl.html

[kixot]

44. I'm learning C now

It's hard.

[RetroLounge]

45. Fortran in 1979 on a mainframe that kept crashing

Made me swear off computers FOREVER. Damn things are worthless!

of course, I program in Delphi (pascal) for a living now.

[fortyfeetunder]

46. P-chem

I ran into Basic during physical chemistry class, affectionately known among chemists as "P-Chem". We had to use it for statistical analysis. But the fun part was discovering the games left on the teletype machine, like computer football. After I did my homework, I'd play football for hours.

[fabius]

47. Fortran

Punch cards, the whole nine yards.

Remember those modems where you jammed the whold receiver in the thing?

8 - inch floppy disks?

etc.

[EV1Ltimm]

49. COBOL... BLECK!!!!!

We had to start out coding in cobol at school (in 1999 no less) just so we can say "Wow, coding in C in a UNIX environment rocks!" the next quarter.

Unfortunately, writing in C in ANY enviroment is far from "rocking". But we moved on to C++, PL-SQL and VB etc etc.

And furthermore, i'm glad Visual Basic lived up to its name. Because if a classroom full of 19 to 25 year old potheads can create database applications for tracking computer components in every other CLC campus across north america, then it must be INCREDIBLY basic.

[Ouabache]

51. Fortran nt

n/t