Wednesday, July 16, 2008

Where Have I Been?

Ok, so lets see, in the 9 years in the Air Force I spent 90% of the time deployed, and hit 85 countries. Let's list them all. Ok, just kidding, I know you don't really care about all the countries I've been in.

So I'm a programmer at heart, and have been around 32 years. Lets look at the journey through those eyes.


We'll isn't that special. Attempted to stick an html table in, and I get an extra line break in my post for every table element. Ok, so lets try a list.


  • COBOL - Limited, collage classes
  • FORTRAN - Limited, collage classes
  • Pascal - Limited, Worked with during the Air Force
  • Delphi (Object Pascal) Limited, 2 small projects to learn it
  • Python, Limited, tweaked some code to better display some game maps for an MMORPG
  • LUA, Limited, tweaked some UI code to take a horrid game ui into something playable.
  • PHP, Limited, and don't get me started on this and the rest of LAMP. More on this in a future blog when i feel like ranting some.
  • C/C++/VC++, Limited, and yes I know if any C++ guys are around they will take offence o me combining all of these together. Sorry gang.
  • DBase I/II/III+, A lot of work here over the early years. Nice when the DB and language are in one spot.
  • Excel/Lotus 123/Lotus Symphony/Silk, Actually have done over the years a lot of work in thier macro langagues.
  • VBA, ya, ya, I know....
  • Oracle
  • DB2 AS400
  • HP3000 Image Database

Ok so thats the list of langagues and database's I can play in, but prefer not to. Now on to stuff I'm around more.

  • Basic/VB, Feels like I've been doing BASIC for most of my life. Oh wait, 32 years since my first BASIC program on an HeathKit H8/H9. So I guess I have been at it for the majority of my life. A few BASIC classes in the Air Force. Several Games for the Commador Vic20 and C64. Then into VB3/4/5/6/7/VB.net. Have done some pretty serious work in the VB realms. Multi-threaded VB5 with function call backs.
  • C#, After so many years of VB when .net arrived, I just couldn't stand the idea of upgrading yet one more time, so made the switch to C# and have been like a pig in slop ever since.
  • SQL Server 4.2 - 2005 (just waiting on 2008), pretty much been a
    SQL server hound for as long as it's been a viable tool. It's my DB of choice.
  • AJAX... Let me rephrase. AJAX not (though they are cool) the AJAX tool kit. Asynchronous XML and Java Script is just well one of the very coolest technology mashups to come along in a long long time. We were doing remote work with broswers to the server for years before, but the AJAX wrapper around it, is just sweet.

This is a pretty good list of what and where. Next entry I'll talk more about what I'm enamored with. That list is pretty small, but very current.

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