Your coding and database skills?

School and on the job experience

Borland U

Of course, that saying is a bit dated and was back when Borland was one of the major publishers of computer programing books.

Nowadays, I guess you'd say "O'Riley U".

Basically, LOTS of reading and then just start banging out some code and learn what works and what doesn't.

Also, the web is an endless resource that you will tap daily when creating your apps. There are a TON of good tutorial sites and site for coders to share information.

As to database skills; that really depends on what you want to do. This is a very large area of study and not for the faint of heart. Not that I think you are. I am quite sure you are up to the task.

One thing you must grasp is the concept of good database design. The best book I have read that helped me a lot (some would say I didn't learn a darn thing) is Database Design for Mere Mortals.

Once you get to know your way around a database, you need to learn how to get meaningful data out of it and for that, you will get into the arcane art of SQL.

All the O'Riley books I've ever read are good.

If you intend to build web database apps, be sure to pay attention to proper means of "SQL injection defense". (No crass remarks please)

All in all, there is no learning like doing. Just jump in and start. However FOM (Fear Of Manuals) is not an option.

First computer was a Commodore Vic-20 in early 80's. Learned BASIC programming for it from various magazines and books. Saved programs to cassette tape Next was a Commodore 64 and 5-1/4 disk drive and messed around with a little Assembler for it. NO THANK YOU!!!

As Industrial Engineer student at GA Tech, we took a few database design courses and learned to do special coding for engineering projects - some discrete event simulations and statistical packages.

Over the years I picked up more and more programming and database experience. Last 10 years I've been supporting an Oracle based student information system and writing lots of SQL code, Unix shell scripts and PC batch files for it. We've created lots of custom views, packages and "side applications" using the database. At least 95% has been OJT and RTFM learned.

First learned FORTRAN in a college course (though I was long past college). First learned DBase on my own, just using the DBase manuals.

VERY important perspective to keep in mind on databases: The ones you hear about the most are relational. These are also the ones that are taught. HOWEVER, the ones in actual use in industry are often "old tech", based on fixed indexes instead of being relational. Become a master of one and you will be a cripple at the other ...

walking wounded Kelly

My what......

Technical school then 30 years on the job.

Self taught, College, work sponsored classes.

The problem with self-taught is that while you may learn how to program, you won't necessarily learn how to program correctly.

Wasn't until college when I learned data abstraction, modular programming, etc.

Yep. Biggest problem with being self-taught is the teacher.

+1 to Boatsrule.

I can't program my danm VCR let alone a 'puter.

Coding was on an Apple IIe. I learned database on an IBM 8086. Before there were clones and when a 2mhz computer ran about 7K. That was with 64K of ram and no hard drives

My former employer

College and work.

In college, we learned COBOL and RPG II (yuck) on an IBM 4043 mainframe, 3270's, and... punch cards! Punch cards and the IBM 029 punch machine were antiquated then (I'm not that old) - but they gave you an appreciation for program logic and efficiency of coding that no other technology can provide.

Our lab had a couple of TRS-80's on which we learned BASIC. Heady stuff. My senior year, the lab got the first two IBM PC's on campus. One of them had dual floppies, the other had a 20MB hard drive ("...you'll never use all that..."). Both were locked in a room and could not be accessed without special permission from a professor or if you were a grad student.

In one of my more advanced classes on database design, we spent a couple of days talking about the then-new IBM System/38. It was a radical machine at the time, with it's own native database language and coding tools as part of the OS. Little did I know that I would spend the first 3 years of my career on one of the few S/38's in Kansas City, and the next 12 on it's descendant, the AS/400. That platform gave me a good career and while I no longer work on it, it's still relevant.

College gave me the ability to get that first job, the first year of which I spent working for and learning from the man who left the following year to become IT Director for the Kansas City Chiefs and the rest of Lamar Hunt's enterprises - he's still there today - and the next two years as his replacement. At my 2nd employer, I spent the first year proving my technical skills, and the next few moving increasingly into project management roles, learning from those already doing that - learning how to manage clients (the component of my career that I seem to be best at), learning the ins & outs of interviewing prospective employees, writing & delivering performance reviews, etc.

Very interesting stories. All engineering majors are requiring at least one programming class (simple C++). In talking with one of my CE professors, they're thinking about increasing it to two required courses.

It made me curious about you guys.

D

Learned HTLM and Visual C++ code as part of the Computer Engineering curriculum in college. Wow, already been 7 years now.

Punch cards, I had forgotten about those things. I feel old all of the sudden.

I learned some Basic on a Timex/Sinclair computer (not much more useful than a calculator). Thats the extent of my programming...

Here's an 029 in what appears to be the basement of a building at Columbia, unknown date. I did a double take because it looks exactly like the punch room at my alma mater. We had 4 of them in the dimly lit, low ceiling'd basement of the administration building.





Work on a deck for several weeks, and then drop it on the floor the day before the project is due. You'll never forget punch cards again .

I coded 3-dimensional arrays in COBOL on those things!

Dark Age Mike

Roommate dropped his cards outside on a wet and windy day! Talk about being upset. Lucky for me the FORTRAN and Pascal classes I took then used a system with terminals...no punch cards

Weren’t punch cards in the forefront of "cut and paste" technology?

Of course, that was back in the EDP days where we wore white smocks and pocket protectors.

I had Basic in college, actually took it twice as I dropped out the first time because of grades and to save my GPA. The second time I got a B+ in the 2 credit hour course. My parents told me that if I got a 4.0 they would buy me a car. All my other grades were A's and I got a 3.89 GPA that semester. After I received my dipolma, they told me college was paid for so that is better than a new car. Computer programing is not my thing.

Man, those punch cards were FUN (not). At Bloomsburg State College (circa 1982 before it was Bloomsburg University), you'd submit your COBOL program for compiling and have to wait a day or two for the results. Fix the errors, resubmit, wait 2 days, fix more errors, resubmit, etc., etc. It would take you 3 weeks to print "Hello World!".

000100 IDENTIFICATION DIVISION.
000200 PROGRAM-ID. HELLOWORLD.
000300
000400*
000500 ENVIRONMENT DIVISION.
000600 CONFIGURATION SECTION.
000700 SOURCE-COMPUTER. RM-COBOL.
000800 OBJECT-COMPUTER. RM-COBOL.
000900
001000 DATA DIVISION.
001100 FILE SECTION.
001200
100000 PROCEDURE DIVISION.
100100
100200 MAIN-LOGIC SECTION.
100300 BEGIN.
100400 DISPLAY " " LINE 1 POSITION 1 ERASE EOS.
100500 DISPLAY "Hello world!" LINE 15 POSITION 10.
100600 STOP RUN.
100700 MAIN-LOGIC-EXIT.
100800 EXIT.

Use a mans language:

CSECT
SAVE (14,12)
BALR R10,0
USING *,R10
ST R13,SAVE+4
LR R15,R13
LA R13,SAVE
ST R13,8(R15)
B BEGIN
R1 EQU 1
R3 EQU 3
R5 EQU 5
R6 EQU 6
R7 EQU 7
R10 EQU 10
R12 EQU 12
R13 EQU 13
R14 EQU 14
R15 EQU 15
SAVE DC 9D'0'
BEGIN EQU *
L R5,0(R1)
LH R6,0(R5)
LTR R6,R6
BZ WTO1
SH R6,=H'6'
BZ A1000
DUMP DC C'D'
A1000 CLC 2(2,R5),=C'01'
BL WTO1
CLC 2(2,R5),=C'04'
BH WTO1
PACK LEN,2(2,R5)
PACK DISP,5(3,R5)
CVB R6,LEN
CVB R5,DISP
ST R6,LEN
ST R5,DISP
BCTR R6,0
ST R6,LEN1
MVN A2100+1(1),LEN1+3
MVN R1200+1(1),LEN1+3
OPEN (CARDIN,(INPUT))
A1100 GET CARDIN,WORK1
AP CDCT,=P'1'
CLC WORK1(3),=C'111'
BNE A1200
LA R7,TAB
BAL R12,R1000
MVI A1410+1,X'00'
B A1100

Geeze, I consider myself an old-time programmer, and I don't recognize that!

And, I betcha that won't print "Hello World!" on ANYTHING.

That's the first computer language... Assembler.

We still have it at my company.

Now I know why I did so poorly in that class! That language sucks!

I recognized the assembler code as soon as I saw line 1. That was the only language I ever absolutely, positively, unequivocally, HATED.

On the other hand, there's nothing you can't do with it.

00100 TAKE COLLEGE COURSE
00200 WRITE HUNDREDS OF CARDS
00300 STAND IN LINE FOR HOURS TO PROCESS
00400 RETURN TO 00200
00500 RETURN TO 00300
00600 REPEAT UNTIL 00300=
00700 EQUATION WORKS
00800 EXHAUSTION
00900 DEATH
01000 NOTE: EXHAUSTION=FAILING GRADE, DEATH=PASSING
01100 TURN IN ASSIGNMENT
01200 REALIZE THAT THE ASSIGNMENT (A,B,C)
01300 (A) COULD BE DONE QUICKER IN PENCIL
01400 (B) HAS NO REAL MEANING
01500 (C) WAS A TOTAL WASTE OF TIME
01600 MAKE VOW (D, E, F)
01700 (D) NEVER DESIGN A PROGRAM AGAIN
01800 (E) NEVER OWN A COMPUTER W/O GUI ONLY INTERFACE
01900 (F) ONLY PUNCH THE TEACHER AND NOT CARDS
02000 STOP