I was called out by Dan Rigsby to do this, so here she goes:

1. How old were you when you started programming?

   I believe I was 12 or 13.

2. How did you get started in programming?

   I remember learning some BASIC in school in either 6th or 7th grade. Ya know, you draw a blocky gun and make it fire a one pixel bullet across the screen. I remember that being pretty fun. Also, right around the same time I started playing with QBASIC at home.

3. What was your first language?

   BASIC/QBASIC

4. What was the first real program you wrote?

   Not counting school, the first real program I wrote was a spaghetti code version (chock full of GOTO’s) of a Choose Your Own Adventure book.

5. What languages have you used since you started programming?

   BASIC, QBASIC, C, C++, MIPS Assembly Language, VB, ADA, Java, C#, ASP.NET, Javascript

6. What was your first professional programming gig?

   I was a lab TA for the CS101 Java course at Purdue, so that was my first job involving programming, but my first job actually programming was at Raytheon. I worked there for six years before coming to Interactive Intelligence in 2006. At Raytheon, I worked on various project for the Army and Navy involving mortar aiming applications, handheld applications, route planning applications for helicopters and many other things. If I tell you anymore I’d have to kill you.

7. If you knew then what you know now, would you have started programming?

   Definitely. Whenever I get asked what my dream job would be I always reply that it would be doing what I’m doing now (programming) or touring in a band. I deeply enjoy them both. But I must admit that programming for myself and writing whatever I want to write at the time would definitely be better than the maintenance programming I sometimes still have to do.

8. If there is one thing you learned along the way that you would tell new developers, what would it be?

   Don’t waste time. I can think of numerous times in college and after college that I just screwed around and did other things when I could have been honing my skills more and keeping myself up to date. I’m trying to get myself back up to date now and it would have been easier if I had just spent the time after college to do so.

9. What’s the most fun you’ve ever had … programming?

   I love programming for fun. Right now, my extracurricular programming activity is writing Bitter a Twitter/social networking client. In my spare time, I’ve also written a chat program, an email application, an account/password manager, an RSS aggregator and several Pocket PC applications including a file explorer, an RSS aggregator, a network scanner, and various other tools. I just find it a great way to learn and to me it’s extremely fun.

10. Who are you calling out?

    I want to call some fellow bloggers and non-bloggers alike (to see if they’ll actually start):

    • Aaron Lerch
    • Scott Bauer
    • Jeff Moser
    • Kyle Brown
    • Jake Robinson
    • Evan Byl
    • Brian McGreer
    • Todd Zerbe