What does it take to be a computer programmer? You have to be logical and methodical while being creative and practical

In the 1960s when I learned to program computers it was much different than now. We were sort of more at the beginning of all of this before microchips were normal beyond NASA in space travel.

Then memory was very very expensive. It wasn't uncommon to have a warehouse full of millions of dollars worth of equipment. And all that equipment had no windows so people wouldn't steal it because it was worth more than diamonds at that time. So, you didn't even want people to see what we had because they might want to steal it.

But, the millions of dollars of equipment then that I and others worked on was sort of like a Macbook Pro Laptop that you can now buy for under 3000 dollars usually. So, you see how much things have changed since the 1960s. In otherwords, the macbook pro Laptop that I'm writing all this on is far more capable than anything or any group of things I used in the 1960s in huge warehouses without windows of computer equipment both in college and after and during.

Then they couldn't get enough programmers or computer operators at that time. There were very few of us trained to program or even understand computer languages then. At that time I applied to IBM and they only wanted to hire people who had a Bachelors or more in Mathematics. I was very disappointed because I didn't realize that before I applied. I obviously had a lot to learn and still do.

Life is never ending learning so if you don't love to learn it's going to be difficult in life for you to get ahead. My older daughter is studying digital film editing. I thought about that some and thought to myself: "Wow!" IF that's your profession you are going to have to learn several new applications per year because that field can't help but change and evolve over time through newer digital editing programs.

In almost every field if you aren't taking at least one course in it a year you aren't going to be able to keep up in almost any field now because things are going to keep changing so fast.

The point I'm trying to make here is that being a computer programmer almost isn't the same thing at all as it was for me in the 1960s. The basics are the same but all the details of it have changed depending upon what kind of programming you are going to be doing and in what language or languages you are going to be doing it in.