Slashdot Mirror

← Back to Stories (view on slashdot.org)

Where Are the Original PC Programmers Now?

Posted by kdawson on from the nobody-expects-the-internet dept.

Esther Schindler writes "In 1986, Susan Lammers did a series of interviews with 19 prominent programmers in a Microsoft Press book, Programmers at Work. These interviews give a unique view into the shared perceptions of accomplished programmers, the people who invented the tools you use today. In Programmers Who Defined The Technology Industry: Where Are They Now?, I tracked down the fate of these prominent developers — from Robert Carr (Framework) to Dan Bricklin (VisiCalc) to Toru Iwatani (author of Pac Man, I'm glad you asked). The article quotes the developers' 1986 views on programming, the business, and the future of computing. In two cases (Bricklin and Jonathan Sachs, author of Lotus 1-2-3) I spoke with them to learn if, and how, their views had changed. One meaty example: In 1986, Bill Gates said, on Microsoft's future: 'Even though there'll be more and more machines, our present thinking is that we won't have to increase the size of our development groups, because we'll simply be making programs that sell in larger quantities. We can get a very large amount of software revenue and still keep the company not dramatically larger than what we have today. That means we can know everybody and talk and share tools and maintain a high level of quality.' At the time, Microsoft had 160 programmers."

6 of 124 comments (clear)

  1. Re:So.... by Monkeedude1212 · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Well those were back in the 8 bit days when the database couldn't hold more than 256 employees at once. They had some wiggle room, but not much.

  2. Re:So.... by Chrisq · · Score: 5, Interesting

    ... 160 programmers is all you'll ever need?

    I would be interested in a then/now of how many lawyers they have. That would really reflect the change in the IT industry.

  3. Back in the days by Drakkenmensch · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Everyone from my parents to job counselors kept telling me that learning programming and computers was a dead end because it was both a fad and a saturated market. IBM already had all the programmers they would ever need, who would hire more?

    1. Re:Back in the days by AnonymousClown · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Everyone from my parents to job counselors kept telling me that learning programming and computers was a dead end because it was both a fad and a saturated market. IBM already had all the programmers they would ever need, who would hire more?

      Then, you went into programming. Life was good ... but you start noticing that more and more programming jobs start going overseas. But you don't worry, they're just doing the maintenance and boiler plate code. You, after all, are doing the intense design and algorithms. Life is still good - your pay just keeps going up and up!

      Then one day, you're asked to train a young man from an Asian country about your code. You answer questions like, "What does an asterisk by a variable mean?", "What's this arrow mean?" and "What's a pointer?" and other questions that make you wonder if this person is even qualified to be doing what they hired him for.

      You think nothing of it because you have skills and you are always willing to learn and adjust - you'll be employable for ever!

      Time goes on and you're getting closer to 40. You start doing more documentation type of things because the coding is being done more and more with outsourcing companies.

      Then one day, they don't need you anymore and when you try to get more work, you hear nothing. Many, many, many resumes out - nothing. You get more education and training and still nothing. In the meantime, you see posts on places like Slashdot saying that they are having a hard time getting qualified people. Resisting the urge to flame the poster, you walk away from your computer mumbling, "Bullshit. Bullshit.Bullshit. Bullshit. ..."

      You then see that some "loser" you knew years ago went into management and is still employed and you think "Why oh why did I insist on staying technical!?!"

      --
      RIP America

      July 4, 1776 - September 11, 2001

  4. Good Old Day? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Interesting

    I was hardware guy in a computer store in the mid 70's. Bill Gate was a guest speaker at 1 of the computer club meetings we hosted, It was in the early days of the Apple II and mostly we sold S-100 systems (Altair, Cromemco, Processor Technology...)
    Bill gates whined aboout making 3 dollars and hour on Altair Basic because everybody just passed around the paper tape. He tried to convince us that he thought that software should be bundled with the hardware. We booed him off the stage.

    I remember people coming in and asking to by a Visicalc computer, We always got a chuckle out of it when we had to explain they wanted an Apple .

    Mostly what we were interested in was getting a program by Ward Christensen called CBBS working. It ran in an Altair with a Cromemco ZPU board using an Intertec Superbrain terminal with a couple Wangco 8 inch floppys and 48 K of Thinker Toys memory. This 1 Toy bar far had more effect on the world than anything else I remember. Ward was in Chicago and We had a guy named Kieth Peterson with us

    You would have to use a program Ward made called Xmodem with a modem and dial up the store.

    Now get off my lawn!

  5. Peter Norton? by BetaRelease · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Where is Peter Norton? His Norton Utilities was the greatest set of utilities then -- especially Unerase!