age of Python programmers

[Lucas Raab]

One thing I've always kind of wondered is what is the average age of a
Python programmer?? What age groups use Python?? Something to think
about....

[Curt]

On 2004-08-20, Reid Nichol <rn*********@yahoo.com> wrote:

True, but this doesn't change the definition of the word. from dictionary.reference.com:
The smallest amount of a physical quantity that can exist independently,
especially a discrete quantity of electromagnetic radiation.

That's the definition of the word "quantum"; it is not the definition of the
expression "quantum leap".

curty@einstein:~$ dict "quantum leap"

1 definition found

From WordNet (r) 2.0 [wn]:

quantum leap
n : a sudden large increase or advance; "this may not insure
success but it will represent a quantum leap from last
summer" [syn: {quantum jump}]

[Paul Foley]

On Sat, 21 Aug 2004 17:59:41 +0900, Ian J Cottee wrote:

http://dictionary.reference.com/search?q=quantum%20leap A dramatic advance, especially in knowledge or method, as in
Establishing a central bank represents a quantum leap in this small
country's development.

Establishing a central bank could hardly be called an advance,
dramatic or otherwise!

--
The State is the great fiction by which everyone seeks to live at the
expense of everyone else. -- Frédéric Bastiat

(setq reply-to
(concatenate 'string "Paul Foley " "<mycroft" '(#\@) "actrix.gen.nz>"))

[Dominic]

I am 25 years old and I use Python at least since version 1.5.
I have started programming on the Atari 1024STFM
with ST- and Omikron-Basic.
Later on the PC I used:
Power Basic|Quick Basic
Turbo Pascal|Assembler
Borland C/C++

Today I usually use Python and C (gcc,mingw).

Ciao,
Dominic

[Reid Nichol]

> from which we conclude that "check the definition" means "check the

definition in the dictionary *I* prefer. . .AND stop reading before it
contradicts the position I espouse."

Look, given the use of "quantum" in quantum physics it's reasonable to
expect the word to mean something small - but insisting it must do so
is flat-out wrong. For one thing this isn't Gell-Mann appropriating a
nonsense word - "quark" - from Joyce; "quantum" was a perfectly good
English word before Planck applied it to black-body radiation. The OED
has references going back to 1619 as a synonym for quantity. (It even
has a use in pharmacology - "quant. suff!", famously chanted in Alfred
Bester's /The Stars My Destination/, is an abbreviation of "quantum
sufficit," roughly "as much as necessary.)

I have my opinion, you have yours. Why get your pantyhose in a bunch.
I made mention of my reasoning that you didn't touch on, you just got
agressive straight away... why am I replying?

[Reid Nichol]

Peter Hansen wrote:

or mistake... if they did, Americans would properly use "fewer"
in all those cases where they now use "less" incorrectly.

-Peter

I lived in the US for a chunk of time (Berkeley). Let's not get into
how the Americans have butchered the english language.

[Reid Nichol]

@Ian J Cottee:

Perhaps you should read some of my earlier posts.

[Reid Nichol]

Peter Otten wrote:

Reid Nichol wrote:

and then a quantum leap towards Python.

You're aware that a quantum leap means a extremely small leap, right?

(from a random walk through the internet)

size [m] jumps [m] ratio
man 2 8 4(*)
grasshopper 2e-2 4e-1(*) 20
electron 2*3e-15 5e-11 (Bohr radius) 8000(*)

(*) my calculation

That's one small step for electricity, one giant leap for an electron...
Based on the above evidence a 10m Python should jump 80 kilometers (50
miles), so beware...

Peter

LOL!

[Alan Gauld]

> Lucas Raab wrote:

One thing I've always kind of wondered is what is the average age of a
Python programmer?? What age groups use Python?? Something to think
about....

OK, I'll play...

I'm 46, started programming in 74 in BASIC (dunno what machine,
it was located at the local university and we downloaded the
programs from a teletype over a modem(120 baud) and got back
printouts 3 days later...)

Next I encountered the Sinclair ZX81 in 1981 (Timex in the USA)
where I wrote my first stock control application for a friend's
business!

In 1982 I started entering patches to a Marconi Telex switch in
Coral via a BBC Micro running a terminal emulator. I only
realised that later, I actually thought I was programming
the BBC at the time!! :-)

Then in 1984 I got formal training in Pascal, Assembler, C, Lisp
and Smalltalk. I've been a software engineer ever since and came
across Python in 1997 when a colleague pointed me at it after I
complained about the Perl syntax I was using to write a CGI
script.

I now use Python mainly for prototyping design ideas and
exploring the interfaces of our networked server applications
before writing specs for our offshore programmers to write in C++
or Java.

Alan G.
Author of the Learn to Program website
http://www.freenetpages.co.uk/hp/alan.gauld

[Roy Smith]

Alan Gauld <al********@btinternet.com> wrote:

I'm 46, started programming in 74 in BASIC (dunno what machine,
it was located at the local university and we downloaded the
programs from a teletype over a modem(120 baud) and got back
printouts 3 days later...)

Basic in 1974 sounds just like where I got started. We had a teletype
too (the modem was 110 baud, BTW, not 120), but we were connected to
another regional high school's time sharing system (an HP-3000, IIRC),
so we got our stuff immediately. Oh, oh, oh, oh, stayin' on-line,
stayin' on-line!

Since then, I've done Fortran, lisp, a few different flavors of
assembler, C, C++, Java, HyperCard/SuperCard, TCL, Perl, Postscript
(yes, it's a real programming language) and of course Python. Oh, and
NewtonTalk. How could I forget NewtonTalk :-) And a few different HP
calculator languages.

[Steven Rumbalski]

Lucas Raab wrote:

One thing I've always kind of wondered is what is the average age of a
Python programmer??

I may as well get in on the game. I'm 31 and started programming when I was
26 in c++. I was intrigued by python, but was wooed by the marketability
of java and learned it in 2000. I finally learned python in 2001 and have
never looked back.

Programming is a hobby for me--I wish it were more than that. I am a
customer service rep in real life.

Steven Rumbalski

[Gerrit Muller]

Gerrit Muller wrote:

P.S.,

a lot of people added other intersting datapoints: when they started
programming and other languages used. I started around the age of 14,
with HP table top machines (polish notation). Programming languages:
Assemblers, Fortran, *Basic, *Pascal, C, Objective-C, C++. The most
positive experiences were Sinclair QL-basic, Turbo Pascal, Objective-C
and then a quantum leap towards Python.

I forgot to mention Java, this must be Freudian mistake

Gerrit
--
Gaudi systems architecting:
<http://www.extra.research.philips.com/natlab/sysarch/>

[Oliver Fromme]

Peter Hansen <pe***@engcorp.com> wrote:

Bryan wrote:

i'm 37... started programing on a TRS-80 Model I and III. i also did a
bit a programming on a VIC-20... brownie points for anyone who can
remember how many text characters there was in one row...

23! ... freakin' weird little machine that was... :-)

It was 22 characters per row, and 23 rows on the screen.
The little thing didn't even have a graphics mode, though
you could fake it by modifying the pixel definition of the
character set.

I used to have a VIC-20 with a 40 Kbyte (not Mbyte) memory
extension. Those 40 Kbyte costed 200 DEM at that time;
roughly 100 $US. I don't dare to calculate the price
factor relative to today's RAM modules ...

Of course, I used the built-in BASIC, and very soon also
used 6502 machine code. Yes, machine code, no assembly
language, not even a hex monitor. I wrote the instructions
on paper, then looked up the opcodes in a 6502 CPU table,
then converted the hex/binary numbers back to decimal and
entered them into BASIC "data" statements. If the CPU
hung when running it, reboot (which took only 2 seconds)
and re-check the paper work ... Oh joy.

I could go on writing memories for hours, but I'll stop
here because it's completely off-topic already. :-)

Now, 20 years later, Python is my language of choice.
If it just supported strong typing, it would be perfect.

Best regards
Oliver

--
Oliver Fromme, Konrad-Celtis-Str. 72, 81369 Munich, Germany

``All that we see or seem is just a dream within a dream.''
(E. A. Poe)

[Clark C. Evans]

Just about average I guess.... 35 very soon

On Thu, Aug 19, 2004 at 10:35:53PM +0000, Roel Schroeven wrote:
| number of datapoints: 94
| mean: 35.4
| standard deviation: 12.6

[Denis S. Otkidach]

On Thu, 19 Aug 2004 22:35:53 GMT
Roel Schroeven <rs****************@fastmail.fm> wrote:

Roel Schroeven wrote:

I spotted some errors in your list, added new entries, and made a
histogram: http://roelschroeven.net/pythonages/

I'm 29

--
Denis S. Otkidach
http://www.python.ru/ [ru]

[Roel Schroeven]

Denis S. Otkidach wrote:

On Thu, 19 Aug 2004 22:35:53 GMT
Roel Schroeven <rs****************@fastmail.fm> wrote:

Roel Schroeven wrote:

I spotted some errors in your list, added new entries, and made a
histogram: http://roelschroeven.net/pythonages/

I'm 29

Update results still at http://roelschroeven.net/pythonages/

--
"Codito ergo sum"
Roel Schroeven

[Fred Allen]

Jeremy Jones <za******@bellsouth.net> wrote in message news:<ma**************************************@pyt hon.org>...

Lucas Raab wrote:

One thing I've always kind of wondered is what is the average age of a
Python programmer?? What age groups use Python?? Something to think
about....

Sigh...I have programmed professionally in many languages since 1956,
the year I began with IBM 704 and 705 absolute(not quite assembler). I
have been a Python enthusiast for several years now, Regrettably, I
program little now, for my other company responsibilities forbid it.
Moreover, I'll be seventy next year; I seem slightly less quick at
coding than in my salad days...happily, I'm surrounded by others still
in theirs. I hope that all laboring in the vineyards of ones and zeros
gain as much joy from their careers as I have (and still do) from
mine.

Fred Allen

[Andreas Pauley]

Lucas Raab wrote:

One thing I've always kind of wondered is what is the average age of a
Python programmer?? What age groups use Python?? Something to think
about....

I'm 25, using Python mostly for sysadmin work at the moment, and expanding
my skills to use it for OO system development as well.

Andreas Pauley

[Bruce Peterson]

"Lucas Raab" <py*********@hotmail.com> wrote:

One thing I've always kind of wondered is what is the average age of a
Python programmer?? What age groups use Python?? Something to think
about....

57 -- I guess I'm on the right side of the curve. I started programming with Fortran 2 back in
high school. I regard programming as a way to make tools to do what I want -- so I've never
regarded myself as a professional programmer. I've written a lot of code because it's been
easier to program a computer to do a task than to train a human.
I ran into Python about 2 years ago when I was looking for an easy way to do data animation.
Python's ability to easily implement complex data structures sold me.

[John W. Hall]

59

Is "the age of Python programmers" anything like
"The Age of Aquarius"? (i.e. The Dawning of)

--
John W Hall <ww**************@telus.net>
Cochrane, Alberta, Canada.
"Helping People Prosper in the Information Age"

[Ravi Teja Bhupatiraju]

"Lucas Raab" <py*********@hotmail.com> wrote in message news:<jQ****************@newsread3.news.atl.earthl ink.net>...

One thing I've always kind of wondered is what is the average age of a
Python programmer?? What age groups use Python?? Something to think
about....

27. Started at 15 (with a rather late acquired TRS-80).

[AdSR]

"Lucas Raab" <py*********@hotmail.com> wrote in message news:<jQ****************@newsread3.news.atl.earthl ink.net>...

One thing I've always kind of wondered is what is the average age of a
Python programmer?? What age groups use Python?? Something to think
about....

32 here. I discovered Python in early 2003 thanks to Bruce Eckel's
mention of it in "Thinking in Java" (something like "becoming my
favorite programming language"). No opportunity to use it as my main
programming language so far but I use it for helper tools and for
personal stuff.

AdSR

[Martin Franklin]

On Wed, 18 Aug 2004 12:20:31 GMT, Lucas Raab <py*********@hotmail.com>
wrote:

One thing I've always kind of wondered is what is the average age of a
Python programmer?? What age groups use Python?? Something to think
about....

I'm 31 I've been _using_ since 1999 my first post to this new group was
in 2000. Python is my first real programming language (a little bit of
basic on the Spectrum 48 (k!) bbc basic at upper school (13-16)

I've since learned Java and C# - my main language is still Python
waiting-for-the-decorator-discussion-to-stop-ly

Martin
--
Using M2, Opera's revolutionary e-mail client: http://www.opera.com/m2/

[Brian Almond]

"Lucas Raab" <py*********@hotmail.com> wrote in message news:<jQ****************@newsread3.news.atl.earthl ink.net>...

One thing I've always kind of wondered is what is the average age of a
Python programmer??

31 here. I started experimenting with code when I was pretty young.
Started out on my father's IMSAI 8080 (which moved into my room when
we got our first IBM PC :). Python got my attention around the time
the DDJ issue came out with Guido & Larry Wall on the cover.

[Jim Sizelove]

> Lucas Raab wrote:

One thing I've always kind of wondered is what is the average age of a
Python programmer?? What age groups use Python??

I just turned 38 a few days ago. Fell in love with programming in Basic
on an Apple ][ when I was about 15. My interests went in other
directions during college (Philosophy, Religion, Peace and Global
Studies), and then other directions in my career (desktop publishing,
metal machining for the automotive industry).

I have gotten back into serious programming in the last five or six
years, using VB in my work, but dabbling in C, C++, Lisp, Java, Perl.
But Python has become my language of choice in the past several months.

Jim Sizelove

[Hamish Lawson]

40
Hamish Lawson

[Steve Allgood]

I'm 36.

I use it for web scripts. I love the simplicity of the syntax and the
power of the language.

~Steve Allgood