Keyvan Nayyeri

A new meme has been started among .NET bloggers asking about how did they get started in software development. The original idea belongs to Michael Eaton and I’ve been tagged by my dear friend Simone Chiaretta in Italy to answer this question.

Generally I’m not very interested in such meme’s. The only time that I participated in the game was in that five unknown things about me almost 1.5 years ago!

However, this is the second time both to accept the request from my dear friend, Simone, and also because I liked this question somehow. It’s interesting, though!

How Old Were You When You Started Programming?

I started programming when I was 12 years old. I started using computer when I was 11 and just one year after that I started coding!

Although this can be a part of my answer for the second question but my story with computer started when there were only a very limited group of people in the country who had access to computers. Those days computer was a very new thing in the country and there weren’t many people who really know how to use it. Many of the early users were using it for playing games!

At that time we had a trip to my hometown, Kermanshah, to visit relatives. There when we were in my aunt’s house I saw the first computer in my life. Her husband had a MS degree in Statistics and was teaching some computer-related courses at a college. He first introduced me to computer and I started playing with my cousin! Indeed computer attracted me at first glance!

Despite the expensive cost of a PC in the country in those years, my parents bought me a computer and I started using computer! Within less than a year after that, I got interested in programming because of my aunt’s husband again. The story comes in the next answer!

How Did You Get Started in Programming?

Well, my aunt’s husband had a good habit and it was playing with his children and me and asking some good mathematical questions. Those days he suddenly jumped from mathematics to programming and showed me some principles about programming. He also showed me a GWBasic program and how he had written a program. Even though I was a kid but that was quite attractive for me and this was the start point for my programming.

The lack of computer science and its existence in the country hadn’t allowed many people to learn about programming and the level of knowledge was really low! It was a little hard to find a resource to learn programming but I finally could find an elementary GWBasic/QBasic course held in the next summer. That course was a good start point. Believe it or not but I was attending this course as the youngest attendee! All attendees were at least 18-19 years old. Teacher were talking about many mathematical concepts that I didn’t know at that time like triangular functions (Sin, Cos, Tan and Cot) and I was just looking at blackboard to see if I can understand what does he mean!

However, that course had its own influence. I tried hard to learn programming with GWBasic and QBasic and I finally could. Nowadays computer and programming is common among people but still I can’t find many guys with same interest as myself who can be really interested to learn. I’m still passionate about learning but this time in an advanced level!

What Was Your First Language?

It was GWBasic because before attending the course I had learned some basics from my aunt’s husband and had looked at some source code samples to see if I can understand something! The main focus in the course was on QBasic, though!

What Was the First Real Program You Wrote?

Believe that it’s hard to remember this from those days! Unfortunately I can’t remember. But I can remember that Mortal Combat was the first game that wasted many hours of me!!

What Languages Have You Used Since You Started Programming?

There have been many languages and related technologies for development but in the order of appearance I’ve used GWBasic, QBasic, C/C++, Pascal, VB 5.0, VB 6.0, ASP Classic, HTML/XHTML, JavaScript, SQL/T-SQL, VB (.NET one!), ASP.NET, C#, F#, Ruby/Ruby on Rails and some related technologies and tools that couldn’t be considered a programming/development language!

What Was Your First Professional Programming Gig?

I can’t remember this one as well but I think I was 16 or 17 when did something. You have to ask these questions from someone at an older age who can remember this stuff clearly!!

If You Knew Then What You Know Now, Would You Have Started Programming?

Well, you ask hard questions. Can I drink water?! Ok, I can give the best answer 6-12 months later. I really love software development and more than that I love to solve complex problems and do something hard. These are all personal stuff but from a business point of view here in the country software development doesn’t have a good position for someone at my position. I spend much effort on this while the income is not balanced so I don’t work for local companies and employers. Generally there is no need for development at the level that I do that. Projects and problems are rudimentary and business is dirty.

Referring to that famous post, if I can immigrate to a new country with a better software business where I can really use my capabilities and skills then that would be a great opportunity for me to grow and then I would be more than happy with what I’ve done so far! I have much more capabilities than what I’ve been able to apply to now. Unfortunately my own projects could only satisfy me. For example, this Waegis thing was very very sweet and I loved it even though that was so hard to stay up and not sleep for 2-3 days to launch the site and put it on the right track as an individual! Actually this project had to be done by a group of 2-3 active developers.

Otherwise (if I can’t get out to a better place) the effort and time that I put into the software world has been a waste of time (at least for myself) because it can’t do much for my professional life!

If There is One Thing You Learned Along the Way That You Would Tell New Developers, What Would It Be?

I hope that future doesn’t challenge this opinion but I can recommend newbie’s to focus on learning rather than money. I see that many young developers (suppose me as an old guy!) come to this world just for money. Development can be hard at some points especially in some points like what I had in the past 4-5 days and the only thing that can help you to persist is your passion and your skills/experiences.

It’s very important to learn forever for every job not only for software development but it’s double as other fields in software world! If you don’t study and you don’t learn new techniques and technologies then you can’t keep the progress in a longer time!

The other point is that a developer should train himself with solving problems and doesn’t limit himself to regular data-in/data-out solutions. It’s worthwhile to define uncommon projects and do them, read about algorithms and even solve mathematical problems in order to be able to work with complex problems. I do love this and always enjoy solving something.

What's the Most Fun You've Ever Had ... Programming?

Yes, I always enjoyed programming. Even writing a small application can make me happy and more than programming I always enjoyed solving problems.

Beside programming there were some related stuff that I could enjoy them such as writing books, articles and blog posts about programming and also communicating with other developers all over the world from the east to the west and finding new friends. Some of these friend have become best friends in my life. We just found each other via development community!

Tagging Others

It’s easy to find someone to tag but it’s hard to find someone who may be interested to get in the network and write about the questions. However, I tag five friends that I’m personally interested to know their answers. Of course, there is no rush in such posts. There are many guys who don’t like to write about such stuff!

So I want to tag and invite Phil Haack, Steven Smith (don’t forget to check his new Graffiti blog and subscribe), Hamid Shojaee, Mads Kristensen and Dave Burke who I think may be interested to write their answers.