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John Allen
John Allen

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Remember Micro-Soft?

The first time I programmed a computer was in Microsoft BASIC back in the late 1970s—when the company was still called Micro-Soft. Fast forward to today, and here I am, writing my first post on DEV.to… and honestly, I’m a little frightened.

Why? Because I’ve always worked for end users, not in developer communities. My conversations about programming were usually met with yawns or polite excuses to do something else. I never attended university, so I have no formal qualifications, and I suspect many of you use terminology I won’t be familiar with—even if I’ve written code that does something similar.

So why am I here?
Because I love to learn. I’ve spent years solving real-world problems with code, and now I’d like to discover how others approach the same challenges, pick up the right terminology, and maybe contribute something useful along the way.

Here I am in the school computer room, writing Microsoft BASIC on a terminal connected to a custom built machine. This was my first taste of programming—and yes, the company was still called Micro-Soft back then!

What advice would you give someone who’s starting to share their experience after years of coding in isolation?

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