Although my work life is in a specific area of IT not specifically related to programming, it would seem I've always had some level of involvement with this side of computing.

In fact I started my working life as a programmer back in 1989, but the reason I got that job was because as a kid I'd learnt to program my ZX Spectrum. Over the years I've programmed various languages like Basic, C, DataFlex, HTML and PHP, and somehow have always found a reason in any non programming jobs to use my programming skills to make various work flows easier.

What I think is a real shame is that I come from a rather small niche of kids that learnt programming as a fun hobby, that then went on to make careers out of it. We were the original computer whizz kids from the mid to late 80s, that know our way round computers properly. Most later kids know way less because they have just played with the programs that were pre-written for them; and hence know very little about the underpinnings of a modern PC. One thing I'm determined to do is try to make sure that my kids at least have some kind of base familiarity with programming techniques. I think that this helps create a logical thought process and if nothing else will help with using programs like Excel, which most of us are confronted with in our everyday working life.

So, probably no other reason other than my own biographical amusement, I'm going to follow up this post with a look back at the programming languages I have played with over the years.