Today I saw a post on Facebook by a friend of mine, Anthony Green, about writing his first blog post as a Microsoft employee (he has a personal blog as well, unfortunately he’s not written anything since 2008) – when I saw the title, I couldn’t believe it was 20 years already – seems just yesterday that I wrote about its 15th birthday:
Happy 20th Birthday Visual Basic!
My, what a journey it’s been. Almost fifteen years ago I randomly bought a copy of “Visual Basic 5: Deluxe Learning Edition” – I was just 15 at the time and wanted a new hobby, and writing software seemed like it would be fun. In those early days, I had no idea what career I would choose, and really didn’t intend for software development to become the dominant force in my life – I just wanted a better, more productive way to spend my time during the summer.
In the years that have went by, I became passionate about the field, and all it encompasses (possible obsessed, if you believe my wife) – it’s been the driving force in my life. Today, I manage a team of 6 developers, and have a fun start-up with some friends (that someday won’t cost me money every month) – and all because I bought that book. Overall, I have a lot to thank VB for, it really did get me started in this field.
Today though, my language of choice has moved on to newer options – I prefer bleeding technologies when I can use them – but VB will always have a place in my heart, and I’ll always follow its progress as it continues to transform and adapt to an ever-changing world. As the most popular .NET language (contrary to what many of the C# developers think), it plays a vital role in the development of the framework and the ecosystem.
In the conversations I’ve had with Anthony about the future of the language, I greatly look forward to writing about its 25th birthday; I expect those will be exciting times for the language and the entire .NET ecosystem.
For those outside of the IT field, developers are looked at as miracle workers – through us, business leaders think anything is possible (and they often see no reason why we can’t work our latest miracle by the next morning). In reality though, we do work miracles; we save companies vast amounts of money every year through increased worker efficiency and automation, we enable new lines of business that wouldn’t be possible otherwise, and reduce energy costs because we keep the office lights turned off.
I have a project coming up that will require some iOS development – which means that it has to be done on a Mac. Seeing as I didn’t own a Mac, and as the more I spent on acquiring one, the less money from this project will end up in my pocket; I needed a cheap solution. In the end I acquired a very nice 13″ MacBook from CowBoom.com; so this is both about the deals that are available and a review of my experience with the seller.
I love what I do, and I work with a great team. While it’s still far from perfect; I can say that I do love my job. For the last couple weeks though, I’ve had to remind myself of this several times. I’m sure we’ve all done it, in this industry it’s hard to avoid. You read an email or receive a phone call and repeat the mantra “I love my job, I love my job, I love my job.
Recently a programmer I know decided that it was time for a career change, leaving the IT field entirely. This gave me cause to think; what does it take to be a great developer. Many people go through school believing they have what it takes, only to receive a rude awaking once they enter the real world.
Before I go on, I think it’s important to define what I mean by developer, and the differences between a developer and a programmer.
To celebrate 15 years of Visual Basic, a quick glance to the past:
Microsoft Announces Visual Basic at Windows World ‘91 General-Purpose, High-Productivity Programming System for Microsoft Windows
ATLANTA — May 20, 1991 — Microsoft today announced MicrosoftR Visual BasicTM programming system at the Windows World ‘91 industry trade show. Visual Basic is a graphical application development system for Microsoft WindowsTM graphical environment version 3.0 that combines visual design tools with a powerful, general-purpose programming language and Windows .
