Thanks to Jacqui I've been added to the ever increasing list of people who have been meme blogging lately.

How old were you when you first started programming?

I first started hacking around with my Commodore 64 and Basic years ago.

How did you get started in programming?

I read a magazine that promised I could write my own database on the C64, and while I couldn't, the promise of being able to do my own thing appealed.  It took a while before I got to a point where I could seriously do anything useful, but thats where it started.

What was your first language?

uh... Basic....

What was the first real program you wrote?

The first real program (other than Unix shell scripts) would have been the Systems management application that I wrote back in EDS in the late 90's.  This was a very cool system which allowed us to eliminate staff shrink staff by attrition and halve the number of admins required to run a large government helpdesk

What languages have you used since  you started programming?

Various scripting languages (unix/linuxy things, perl, vbscript, javascript), Classic ASP, C#, Basic, Visual Basic, C/C++, TCL.

What was your first professional programming gig?

The EDS gig was strictly not programming - I was a System Engineer at the time, but the job after that was a Senior Dev at Compudigm, so I guess that qualifies...

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

Yes.  Having done both Infrastructure and development work, I think Development gives a better spread of knowledge - at least it did in the old days - not sure it's so true now.

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

Keep your code simple and solving problems is more important than writing code.

What's the most fun you've ever had... programming?

The gig at EDS was the most fun.  We pulled long nights to get new features implemented for the clients who were coming in the morning.  Great team spirit and a fun work environment - particularly when every hour is paid :-)

The five people I'm going to tag are: Chris Fairbairn, Nigel Parker, Brenda Wallace, Chris Auld and Kirk Jackson