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→Programmer portraits: What have these six men got in common? A TI, for one thing.
Two of the programmers got their start in computer courses. Dr. Allan Swett of Intelpro in Brossard, Quebec, who is also a math professor at a junior college, says he started programming in 1966 as a student at Penn State "with really old-fashioned stuff, where you'd gnaw your fingers to the knuckles about whether you got a comma in the right place."
He continued in the mathematicsfield but has ''"become more interestedand motivated in making a going concernout of business." Walt Dollard of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania,who is 19 years old, says hebegan in high school 4½ years agowhen he took a computer course. By contrast, Larry Hughes of Quality99 Software in Washington, D.C.,started programming so as not to takeany further courses. tt1s His programmingcareer began 25 years ago. "I was in college, a math major," hesays. "To get a job in math you had toget a Ph.D. and I was tired of school."
At the suggestion of an instructor
who said that programming looked
