Programmers of Southperry

I have to interview you for a math project that for some reason needs an interview. I'm asking 10 simple questions. I need thoughtful and serious responses (hence the Rubik's Cube). You do not have to answer all the questions, especially if they don't apply. My teacher wants your name, address, profession and email or website. I do not want your address (she does, but I don't know why), if you want to give it, PM me. You can leave your name (real), email, and profession, if you feel like it. I recommend you give a spam email (that you at least check), because my math teacher insists on emailing you for verification. After 6:00 Am Dec 7th, do not reply to this thread. Form+Questions are below. If you don't want to tell all of southperry, you can PM me your name, email, job, and education.

(Real) Name:
Current Job/Profession:
Email and/or Website:
Education Level:

1. How did you get interested in computer programming?
2. How many years have you been computer programming? (Regardless of degree)
3. What type of programmer are you, specifically? What do you specialize in?
4. What skills are typically involved in your profession? What things do you have to know and learn?
5. What level of math skills are needed in doing your profession?
6. Do you use math on a regular basis? How about higher level math?
7. Do you feel a college degree is necessary to be a computer programmer? How about when trying to find a job?
8. If you are employed in this field, how much work do you have to do? Are the hours satisfactory?
9. How much are you payed annually in this field?
10. Does your profession cause you any stress? How often do you encounter problems?

(Real) Name:
Current Job/Profession: Civil Engineering undergraduate
Email and/or Website:
Education Level: Junior, college

1. How did you get interested in computer programming?
Computers were everywhere, plus they played games. Plus, you could get said games off the internets. Plus, there was a lot more things off of the internets. Plus, you get the idea by now. But inevitably along the way, things go wrong! And when things go wrong, usually you have to figure out the technical aspects of the problem before you can fix it again by yourself, without rote memorization of step-by-step how-to-fix-it crap. The desire to fix my own problems and avoid many others (viruses, malware, etc.), as well as creativity, drive my passion for computer programming.

2. How many years have you been computer programming? (Regardless of degree)
8 years on and off. Mostly off.

3. What type of programmer are you, specifically? What do you specialize in?
I know a lot about Java, and I have some knowledge in imagery and cryptography. Some day I may probably do some crazy things with images that no other software does for free. I seriously considered reverse engineering targa files once, especially since I have already done so with PNGs and GIFs.

5. What level of math skills are needed in doing your profession?
Uh... math and common sense. Oh, and logic.

6. Do you use math on a regular basis? How about higher level math?
Use math a lot, even if there's nothing that requires it. Calculus occasionally creeps up on me, linear algebra much more so (Civil Engineering, lulz), and so does DifEQ (fk dat shyt). I'm a proud nerd in that I still remember virtually everything from calculus (that I was taught).

7. Do you feel a college degree is necessary to be a computer programmer? How about when trying to find a job?
A college degree is a nice stepping stone. I personally believe that having contacts is the best way to get anywhere in real society however. When you think about getting that college degree, try to think of that counselor or career specialist in your college that set you up the path to success =D Or don't, you solo wanderer.

10. Does your profession cause you any stress? How often do you encounter problems?
I apparently have big issues trying to catch and fix the tiniest of mistakes >.<

(Real) Name: PM'ing
Current Job/Profession: Unemployed after getting bachelor's degree in CS, seeking employment in programming
Email and/or Website: PM'ing
Education Level: Bachelor's degree in computer science

1. How did you get interested in computer programming?
My high school offered a 3-course (3-year) programming sequence. I tried out the first course as a freshman because it was computers and I liked computers and I found out I love programming.

2. How many years have you been computer programming? (Regardless of degree)
As I said before, I started as a freshman in high school (so like 10 years ago). My first program that was used by people other than me was 4 years ago.

3. What type of programmer are you, specifically? What do you specialize in?
I don't specialize in anything, I'm a generalist.

4. What skills are typically involved in your profession? What things do you have to know and learn?
You need to have the ability to figure out what problem you are trying to solve and what your program needs to be able to do (this is more difficult than you might think). You need to be able to design a set of classes and functions that will solve your problem, meet the requirements, and be flexible enough to be changed relatively easily to meet new requirements. You need to be able to actually write code and be able to learn to use code written by other people. You need to be able to test code that you've written, know how to design your programs so that they're not difficult to test, and know how to find and fix bugs that testing reveals. If you're looking to get a job, it is extremely helpful to know at least one web framework and at least one database system.

5. What level of math skills are needed in doing your profession?
Typically nothing more than basic algebra, and only occasionally, not often.

6. Do you use math on a regular basis? How about higher level math?
Again, basic algebra skills are useful both in programming and in general. I do not use any higher level math although I took math up to calculus III in college. However, some specific areas of programming like graphics do require higher level math like linear algebra.

7. Do you feel a college degree is necessary to be a computer programmer? How about when trying to find a job?
To be a computer programmer: No. In fact, being self-taught is not much different from a typical college computer science education. The programming skills used on a day-to-day basis are generally not taught in school. A computer science education will give you a deeper understanding of the computer and of some specific areas like compilers, databases, and networks, which can be helpful but isn't strictly necessary.

When trying to find a job: Yes. Most employers will not look at applicants without a degree.

8. If you are employed in this field, how much work do you have to do? Are the hours satisfactory?
I'm unemployed currently.

9. How much are you payed annually in this field?
I'm unemployed currently. Typical entry-level salaries are about $50,000-$70,000 per year.

10. Does your profession cause you any stress? How often do you encounter problems?
I'm unemployed currently. I do program on my own, but no deadlines = no stress.

1. How did you get interested in computer programming?
I never programmed until I got to college and took my first course in C. I thought it was pretty cool, but I really didn't dive deep into it until I found Lambda's WZ unpacker in 2007. I used that script to create the 4th job skill tables. Then once I figured out how to configure his script for my own wants, I quickly became a python programmer and now have extensively developed my own scripts.

2. How many years have you been computer programming? (Regardless of degree)
About 4 years.

3. What type of programmer are you, specifically? What do you specialize in?
I can program in anything, but I tend to focus on Java, Python, C, and PHP. I also focus on usability design (see "Don't Make Me Think!" by Steve Krug), very clean programming, encryption and obfuscation, and permanent storage solutions.

4. What skills are typically involved in your profession? What things do you have to know and learn?
The absolute necessity for being a computer programmer is to learn to think about abstraction. So instead of thinking about "scruffy the dog barking" you think of "an animal speaking". Instead of thinking "I know Java" just think "The only difference between languages is syntax". Learning to think about abstraction is absolutely pivotal in computer programming.

Other than abstraction, being able to use logic is also required. After programming for a while, you should be able to envision the program in your head - all the ifs, whiles, and for loops - and imagine how all of the different functions, classes, and methods work together to design the best program for your requirements and use cases.

When people think about computer programming, they all tend to focus on sitting down and writing code. In reality, this only consumes about 10% of your time. The other 90% is figuring out what the customer wants your code to do, developing use cases and unit testing, talking with a team about implementation, then doing the actual coding. To see an example of this, do a google search for Agile and XP methods of programming. You'll notice that although there is a lot of focus on the code, very little time is actually spent programming compared to other procedures. You have to be able to learn to talk to people who know jack squat about computers and turn that into a program that works exactly as they want it.

5. What level of math skills are needed in doing your profession?
Very little. Learning basic trigonometry could be useful in programming 2D applications and linear algebra is necessary for 3D applications, but learning basic boolean logic and bitwise operators is much more important.

6. Do you use math on a regular basis? How about higher level math?
I do use math, but it's not the kind of math that they would teach you using algebra. Learning hexadecimal (base 16 numbering) is completely essential for me since I work in binary (base 2) a lot. I rarely use higher level math. Advanced forms of encryption (AES) also uses simple bitwise operators.

7. Do you feel a college degree is necessary to be a computer programmer? How about when trying to find a job?
A college degree is not necessary to become a computer programmer. Anyone can do it. But companies won't even take a second glance at you unless you have a bachelor's degree. You might be able to get by with an associates, but having a bachelors is better.

8. If you are employed in this field, how much work do you have to do? Are the hours satisfactory?
The work I have to do is dependent on how much is required of me. Since most of the work I do is journalism, there's very little work when there are no stories going on. That gives me more time to develop new scripts that I can use. There is always something to do. I can never code enough to satisfy me. This is what keeps me going.

9. How much are you payed annually in this field?
I only make $2000 - 3000/year, but that's because I only do the work in my spare time. Real computer programmers make 15x - 20x that.

10. Does your profession cause you any stress? How often do you encounter problems?
It does cause stress, but it's the good kind of stress. Encountering problems is daily. The whole job of working as a computer programmer is learning about problems in your code and rectifying it and learning about problems and solutions that the customer wants and correcting your code for that. It can be stressful when there's miscommunication, especially when there's a bug in my scripts that causes me to spew out bad information!

Real Name: Heidi (Do you really need my last name?)
Current Job/Profession: Student, 1 course off finishing undergrad
Email and/or Website: heidirose12345@gmail.com - I don't care much about this email address. I do sometimes check it though.
Education Level: 1 course away from Bachelor of Science, majoring in Computer Science

1. How did you get interested in computer programming?
I enjoy using computers, so decided to give computer science a go in my first year of university, along with math and stats. Computer science was my definite favourite, so that is the path I followed. Programming is addictive.

2. How many years have you been computer programming? (Regardless of degree)
Just under 3 years

3. What type of programmer are you, specifically? What do you specialize in?
Software engineering mostly. No really low level stuff. I enjoy AI programming, than am not sure whether this is the path my career will follow. I was so into my AI programming assignment earlier this year that I worked over 16 hours a day towards the deadline on it even though it was working well enough to get me good marks. I am currently doing a summer research project at my university that is largely AI programming.

4. What skills are typically involved in your profession? What things do you have to know and learn?
You need to know about general programming, a few (useful) programming languages, databases, web programming, a basic understanding of networking helps a lot, ability to come up with designs, ability to solve complex problems, and people skills of course, as software engineering involves working in teams.

5. What level of math skills are needed in doing your profession?
Logic and algebra. Doing a course or 2 in discrete math is good for getting into the style of thinking for programming. I did a math course on graph algorithms, which has proven to be useful in areas like AI.

6. Do you use math on a regular basis? How about higher level math?
Not a lot for general programs. AI is heavily algorithms, but it isn't very hard math. Just a bit of logic and some graph algorithms.

7. Do you feel a college degree is necessary to be a computer programmer? How about when trying to find a job?
Yes. Some people self teach themselves, but a lot tend to get into terrible habits or not understand certain things. A college degree shows you know everything you should. It needs to be combined with your own independent work though. Basically in college you learn the basics and about how things actually work, in your own time you use it in practice.
Trying to find a job, definitly. Some companies aren't even fond of you just having a bachelors degree. They want to see postgrad study too.

8. If you are employed in this field, how much work do you have to do? Are the hours satisfactory?
Currently just a student.

9. How much are you payed annually in this field?
N/A

10. Does your profession cause you any stress? How often do you encounter problems?
N/A

I'll send along the rest in PM.

Current Job/Profession: Research Assistant in an Atmospheric Science group at a Canadian University.
Education Level: Master of Mathematics

1. How did you get interested in computer programming?
I was playing videogames and was interested in how the content is developed. More specifically, I was playing Starcraft online. There's a "Use Map Settings" game mode that lets the map designer write triggers, an entirely event based language. When I went to high school, I took classes in programming and found that interesting as well.
2. How many years have you been computer programming? (Regardless of degree)
Around 11 years.
3. What type of programmer are you, specifically? What do you specialize in?
Mostly focused on computational math and some aspects of 3d graphics. Currently specializing in computational algebra at work - taking time series inputs in vector or matrix form, transforming them, and outputting plots of the transformation. The 3d graphics are more a hobby, going back to gaming interests. I'm mostly familiar with CgGL shader language, applied near the final render passes to give special effects.
4. What skills are typically involved in your profession? What things do you have to know and learn?
Being able to read and integrate research papers from areas I'm unfamiliar with quickly is a big help. Reading in data from a variety of sources, and converting it to a uniform structure is also a large part of my job. Writing efficient code comes into play frequently, as some of the computations take a long time. In the working environment, there are often open-source packages available that can perform the required tasks, so reading through their documentation and adapting them is a frequent task. Understanding the language used, from the math, cs and science perspectives, and identifying where they overlap or refer to the same thing is vital.
5. What level of math skills are needed in doing your profession?
I believe it would be possible to fit it into a Bachelor degree, if I'd known in advance where I wanted to end up. Upper year university math courses are definitely playing a part in it. Linear algebra, differential equations, and stochastic processes are the man areas needed in my job, but I draw from other areas I've studied as well, as most mathematical fields are interlinked.
6. Do you use math on a regular basis? How about higher level math?
I use basic math all the time, higher level math less often. To some extent it depends what my supervisor is interested in, since he knows I come from a math background he comes to me with math problems at times. In terms of basic math, unit conversions, picking subsets of vectors, and off-the-cuff calculations in general are common. More advanced math involves understanding the algorithms being used, knowing what to expect from stochastic & turbulent data, and doing preliminary mathematics to simplify the problem.
7. Do you feel a college degree is necessary to be a computer programmer? How about when trying to find a job?
It depends where you intend to work. I think it's possible to pick up all the necessary coding skills independently, and I know people who've taken that route, but in general they're the type to go to college anyway, possibly with a degree in a related field. I think if you're applying for a job, a college degree is definitely necessary. Most jobs that interest me also require postgraduate studies, or very strongly encourage them.
8. If you are employed in this field, how much work do you have to do? Are the hours satisfactory?
Right now I'm not doing an oppressive amount of work, but it does keep me busy. The workload varies a fair amount day to day as tasks get completed and new ones appear. I have had weeks where I don't do anything but work, depending on deadlines.
9. How much are you payed annually in this field?
Around $20,000.
10. Does your profession cause you any stress? How often do you encounter problems?
For the most part, no. Some deadlines have caused me stress, but they come every month or two. Problems are frequent but expected - it's unusual for code to work perfectly the first time. So my time is split between defining what I want the code to accomplish, and then reworking the code until that happens smoothly. Once it works correctly, it's back to figuring out what it should do - which tends to change fairly often.

stereo do you ever mess with directx? I'm trying to learn it