I was first introduced to computers in 1964. My freshman Algebra teacher took the class on a field trip to the Waukegan, Illinois Naval Air Station to tour their computing facility and view their UNIVAC Analog Computer.

Fast forward to 1974 and my first computer programming class, Fortran using punch cards. I still remember all the horror stories of students dropping their punch card deck and having to start inputting the program from scratch.

Leap ahead to 1984 and I had my first job in the computer industry in San Antonio, Tx as a Technical Writer, but soon transitioned to programming in Assembler and C.

Over the course of some 25 years in programming, I have experienced many paradigm changes. My favorite was the publication of the Extreme Programming Manifesto. After reading it I said to myself “I have been developing like that for years and didn’t know it had a name!”