Career programmer. Part 1. First program

Dear Habr readers, I present to your attention a series of posts that I plan to combine in the future in a book. I wanted to delve into the past and tell my story how I became a developer and continue to be.

About the prerequisites for getting into IT, the path of trial and error, self-study and childish naivety. I will begin my story from early childhood, and finish it today. I hope that this book will be especially useful for those who are just studying for an IT specialty.

And those who are already working in IT - may draw parallels with their path.
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In this book you will find a reference to the literature I have read, the experience of communicating with people with whom I crossed paths when learning, working and launching a startup.

Starting from teachers at the university, ending with major venture capital investors and owners of multi-million dollar companies.

To date, 3.5 chapters of the book are ready, out of a possible 8-10. If the first chapters find a positive response from the audience, I will publish the entire book.

About myself

I am not John Carmack, Nikolai Durov or Richard Matthew Stallman. I did not work in such companies as Yandex, VKontakte or Mail.ru.

Although I had experience in a large corporation, which I will tell you. But I think the essence is not so much in the big name as in the history of the path to the developers, and further, in the victories and defeats that have been in my 12-year career in commercial development. Of course, some of you have much more IT experience. But I believe that the dramas and victories that have been in my current career are worth describing them. There were a lot of events, and they are all diverse.

Who am I today as a developer
- Participated in more than 70 commercial projects, many of which wrote from scratch
- In a dozen of its own projects: open-source startups
- 12 years in IT. 17 years ago - wrote the first program
- Microsoft Most Valuable Person 2016
- Microsoft Certified Professional
- Certified Scrum Master
- I own C # / C ++ / Java / Python / JS at a good level
- The main place of work today is Upwork freelance exchange. Through her work for a company that deals with NLP / AI / ML. Has a base of 1 million users
- Released 3 apps in the AppStore and GooglePlay
- I am preparing to establish my own IT company, around a project that I am currently developing

In addition to development, I write articles in popular blogs, teach new technologies, speak at conferences. Relaxing in a fitness club and family.

That's probably all about me, with regard to the topic of the book. Next is my story.

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Story. Start

I first learned what a computer is when I was 7 years old. I just went to the first class and in the class of the Fine Arts we were given homework to make a computer out of cardboard, foam rubber and felt-tip pens. Of course my parents helped me. Mom in the early 80s studied at a technical university and knew not by hearsay what a computer was. During the course of study, she even managed to punch punched cards and load them into a giant Soviet machine, which occupied the lion’s share of the training room.

We did our homework on 5, because we did everything diligently. Found a thick sheet of cardboard A4. From old toys cut circles from foam rubber, and felt-tip pens drew the user interface. Our device got a few buttons, but my mother and I assigned them the necessary functionality and in class I showed the teacher how by pressing the “On” button, a light bulb lights up in the corner of the “screen”, along the way drawing a red circle with a felt-tip pen.

The next intersection with computer technology happened to me somewhere at the same age. On weekends, I often stayed with my grandmother and grandfather, who was selling various junk and also willingly bought him for a penny. Old watches, samovars, boilers, badges, swords of warriors of the 13th century and so on. Among all this variety of things, someone brought him a computer that worked on a television and an audio tape recorder. Benefit from my grandmother there was both. Soviet-made of course. TV Electron with eight buttons to switch channels. And Vega's two-tape recorder, which could even overwrite film audio cassettes.


Soviet computer "Search" and peripherals: TV "Electron", tape recorder "Vega" and audio cassette with the language BASIC

We started to figure out how this whole system works. Included with the computer was a pair of audio cassettes, badly battered instructions, and another brochure with the heading “BASIC Programming Language”. Despite my childhood, I tried to actively participate in the process of connecting cords to a tape recorder and a TV. Then we inserted one of the cassettes into the tape deck, pressed the “Forward” button (ie, start playback), and an incomprehensible pseudo-graphic from text and dashes appeared on the TV screen.

The head unit itself was like a typewriter, only fairly yellowed and noticeable weight. With the excitement of a child, I pushed all the keys, did not see a tangible result and ran for a walk. Although I already had a manual on the BASIC language with examples of programs that I simply could not rewrite because of my age.

From childhood memories, I certainly remember all the gadgets that my parents bought me, having worked with other relatives. The first rattle was the well-known game "Wolf catches eggs." I went through it pretty quickly, I saw a long-awaited cartoon at the end and I wanted something more. Then there was Tetris. At that time, it was worth 1,000,000 coupons. Yes, it was in Ukraine in the early 90s, and for the success in my studies I was given a million. Feeling like a millionaire, I ordered my parents this more complex game, where you had to correctly lay out the falling figures of different shapes. On the day of the purchase, Tetris was taken away from me by my parents, who couldn’t get rid of him for two days.


The famous "Wolf catches eggs and Tetris"

Then there were game consoles. Our family lived in a small house, where my uncle and aunt lived in the next room. My uncle was a military pilot, went through hot spots, so despite his modesty he was very clever and did not have much to fear after real fighting. Like many people in the 90s, my uncle went into business and he had pretty good income. So in his room appeared imported TV, VCR, and then the prefix Subor (analog Dendy). I was breathtaking when I watched him play Super Mario, TopGun, Terminator and other games. And when he passed the joystick into my hands, my happiness knew no bounds.


The eight-bit prefix "Syubor" and the legendary "Super Mario"

Yes, I, like all ordinary children who grew up in the nineties, spent the whole day in the yard. Either playing pioneer ball, or badminton, or climbing trees in a garden where many different fruits grew.
But this novelty, when you can control Mario, jump over obstacles and save the princess - was at times more interesting than any blind man's buffs, palms and classics. Therefore, seeing my genuine interest in consoles, my parents gave me a task to learn the multiplication table. Then they will fulfill my dream. She is taught in the second grade, and I just finished the first. But, it is said - done.

It was impossible to think up a stronger motivation than its own game console. And a week later, I easily answered the questions "family nine", "six three" and the like. The test was taken and I bought the desired gift. As you will learn further, consoles and computer games have played a significant role in my interest in programming.

So they went year after year. The next generation game consoles came out. First Sega 16-bit, then Panasonic, then Sony PlayStation. Games were my entertainment when I behaved well. When there was a jamb at school or at home - the joysticks were taken away from me and I naturally could not play. And of course to catch the moment when you returned from school, and your father did not return from work to occupy the television - it was also a kind of luck. So, to say that I was a gamer or sat for days at a time — you can't say. There was no such opportunity. I would rather spend the whole day in the courtyard, where I could also find something interesting. For example, quite a wild game - shooting air. Nowadays you can’t see such things in the courtyards, but then it was a real war. Paintball is just child's fun, compared to the fight we were doing. Vozdushki because they were charged with dense plastic bullets. And having shot the other kid at close range, there was a bruise on the floor of the arm or abdomen. So they lived.


Toy Gun from childhood

Not be superfluous to mention the movie "Hackers". He came out just in 1995, starring with 20-year-old Angelina Jolie. To say that the film made a strong impression on me - to say nothing. After all, children's thinking takes everything at face value.

And how these guys famously cleaned the ATMs, turned off the traffic lights and played with electricity throughout the city - for me it was magic. Then the thought came into my head that it would be cool to become so omnipotent as Hackers.

A few years later, I bought every issue of the Hacker magazine and tried to hack the Pentagon, although I did not have the Internet at that time.


My characters from the movie "Hackers"

This discovery was for me a real PC, with a 15-inch tube monitor and a system unit based on the Intel Pentium II processor. Of course, his uncle bought him, who by the end of the nineties had risen high enough to allow himself such toys.

The first time I turned on some kind of game, it wasn't too exciting. But once, the day of judgment came, the stars came together in a row and we came to visit an uncle who was not at home. I asked:

- Can I turn on the computer?
“Yes, do what you want with him,” the loving aunt answered.

Of course, I did what I wanted with him. There were different icons on the Windows 98 desktop. WinRar, Word, FAR, Solitaire, games. Poklatsav all the icons, my attention focused on the FAR Manager. It looks like an incomprehensible blue screen, but with a long list (of files) that you can run.

Alternately clicking on each, I caught the effect of what is happening. Something worked, something not. After a while, I realized that the files that end in ".exe" are the most interesting. They launch various cool pictures that can be poklatsat too. So I probably launched all the available exe-files on my uncle's computer, and then I was barely pulled by the ears from the super-interesting toy and taken home.


The same FAR Manager

Then there were computer clubs. My friend and I often visited them, playing Counter-Strike and Quake over the network, which was not possible at home. I often asked my parents for a trifle to play in the club for half an hour. Seeing my eyes, like a cat from Shrek, they offered me another lucrative contract. I finish the school year without triples, and they buy me a computer. The contract was signed at the beginning of the year, in September, and the coveted PC was supposed to arrive as early as June, and subject to compliance with the agreements.

I tried my best. He even sold his beloved Sony Playstation on emotions, so that he would be less distracted from his studies. Although I studied so-so, but the 9th grade was significant for me. Blood from the nose, you only need to get good grades.

Already in spring, anticipating the purchase of a PC, probably the most significant event in my life happened. I try to think in advance, and so one day I told my father:

- Dad, I do not know how to use a computer. Let's sign up for courses.

No sooner said than done. Opening a newspaper with ads, my father found a block written in small print with the heading "Computer courses" . I phoned with the teachers and in a couple of days I was already on these courses. Courses were held at the other end of the city, in the old panel Khrushchev, on the third floor. In one room there were three PCs in a row and those who wanted were trained on them.

I remember my first lesson. Long loaded Windows 98, then the teacher took the floor:

- So. Here is the Windows desktop. It contains program icons. Below is the Start button. Remember! All work begins with the Start button. Click it with the left mouse button.
He continued.
- Here - you see the installed programs. Calculator, Notepad, Word, Excel. You can also turn off the computer by clicking on the "Shut down" button. Try it.
Finally he moved to the more difficult part for me at that time.
- On the desktop, the teacher said, you can also see programs that can be launched by double-clicking.
- Double !? - How's that at all?
- Let's try. Launch Notepad twice by clicking on it with the left mouse button.

Yeah, schaass. The most difficult thing at that moment was to keep the mouse in one place and at the same time quickly double-click. At the second click the mouse twitched a little and the label with it. But still, such an insurmountable task during the lesson was overpowered.

Then there was the training of Word, Excel. One day, I was just given a look at pictures of nature and architectural monuments. It was the most interesting thing in my memory. Much more fun than learning to format text in Word.

Next to my PC, other students were trained. A couple of times I got on the guys who wrote the program, while vigorously discussing this process. I was also interested. Remembering the movie Hackers and the annoying MS Office, I asked to be transferred to programming courses. Like all significant events in life, it happened spontaneously, out of interest.

I arrived at the first programming lesson with my mother. I do not remember why. Apparently she had to negotiate for new courses and make a payment. It was spring outside, it was already dark. We drove through the whole city on a minibus-gazelle to the outskirts, came to the notorious
Panel Khrushchev, climbed to the floor and let us in.

They put me at the last computer and opened the program with a completely blue screen and yellow letters.

- This is Turbo Pascal. Commented on his action teacher.
- Look, here I wrote the documentation, how-what works. Honor, understand.

In front of me was a canvas of yellow, absolutely incomprehensible text. I tried to find out something for myself, but I could not. Chinese letter and that's it.

Finally, after a while, the course presenter handed me a printed A4 sheet. It was written some kind of strangeness, which I used to catch a glimpse of guys from programming courses on monitors.
- Rewrite what is written here. He commanded the teacher and left.
I began to write:
program summa;

I wrote, simultaneously looking for English letters on the keyboard. In the Word, I even trained in Russian, and here I need to learn other letters. The program was typed with one finger, but very carefully.
begin, end, var, integer - what is it? Although I learned English from the first grade and knew the meaning of many words, I could not link it all together. I like a trained bear on a bicycle, continued to pedal. Finally something familiar:
writeln ('Enter the first number');
Then - writeln ('Enter the second number');
Then - writeln ('Result =', c);


The very first program on Turbo Pascal

Fuh, wrote. I removed my hands from the keyboard and waited for the guru to appear for further instructions. Finally he came up, ran his eyes across the screen and said to press the F9 key.
- Now the program is compiled and checked for errors, said the guru
There were no errors. Then he said to press Ctrl + F9, which I, too, for the first time needed to be explained step by step. What you need to hold Ctrl, then press F9. The screen went black, and finally a clear entry appeared to me: “Enter the first number”.
At the command of the teacher, I entered 7. Then the second number. I enter 3 and press Enter.

The line appears on the screen 'Result = 10'. It was euphoria and I had never experienced anything like it before. As if the whole Universe opened before me and I got into some kind of portal. The body went warm, a smile appeared on my face, and somewhere very deep in my subconscious I understood that it was mine . Very intuitively, at the level of emotions, I began to sense the enormous potential in this buzzing box under the table. How much you can do with your own hands, and she will do it!

What is this kind of magic? In my head it did not fit at all, as that yellow incomprehensible text on a blue screen turned into a convenient and understandable program. Which still considers itself! I was surprised not by the calculation itself, but by the fact that the written hieroglyphs turn into a calculator. Between these two events was the abyss at that time. But intuitively, I felt that this piece of iron can do almost everything.

Almost all the way home in a minibus, I was like in space. This picture with the words “Result” was spinning in my head, how did it happen, what else can this car do, can I write something without a piece of paper myself. Thousands of questions that interested me, excited and inspired at the same time. I was 14 years old. That day the profession chose me.

Part 2. School or self-education >>