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View Poll Results: computer hobbyist or pro?
hobbyist 19 37.25%
pro 32 62.75%
Voters: 51. You may not vote on this poll

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Old 22nd November 2008
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Jmdbh View Post
In late 80's I started playing games and programming on my Atari.
I learn to program on Atari ST but went on to study Mathematics and Astronomy. I still have that legendary machine based on Motorola 68000 processor. Unfortunately the first model of Atari that could run Unix was TT (NetBSD still can run on it). First time I saw Unix was in Belgrade on
two DEC alpha stations.
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Old 24th November 2008
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Started as a hobby in the late 70s as a kid. Now like Phoenix being a professional is sucking the fun out of the hobby, I'm to the point that I don't even like to look at my workstation when I get home but I still got through the motions...
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Old 24th November 2008
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Originally Posted by DrJ View Post
How about "neither?" Yes, I use computers professionally, and do all my (small) company's IT. But they are not my focus, nor have I really been trained formally for anything I do now.
Yeah, but you went to Berkeley...
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Old 24th November 2008
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Originally Posted by roddierod View Post
Yeah, but you went to Berkeley...
Fair enough; Unix really was in the air. Still, the only formal programming course I had was a single two-unit introductory FORTRAN class. Using punched cards. In 1975.
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Old 28th November 2008
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I love computers. My first computers were 286s running DOS shell prompts (5.0 I think). I learned about *nix a bit later than most, I started with Linux in 2002. My first version of FreeBSD was 5x. I'm still learning about Linux and FreeBSD. I'm a grade 4/5 school teacher who happens to be the unpaid tech support person on staff.
I have the opportunity now to leave the classroom and become a full-time technology support person for my school district. However, the work atmosphere in the technology department is poisonous so I think I'll remain a teacher who loves technology. This is a tough choice. I'm still feeling ambivalent about this.
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Old 3rd December 2008
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I'm a CS major at the University. I have about 1-1/2 years left to get my degree. All the really fun classes are in the next couple of semesters. I also work at the University as a Systems Administrator.

Once I get my degree, I hope to be a systems programmer that will be able to telecommute/freelance for a living.
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Old 3rd December 2008
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Well, <sigh> it WAS a hobby or I should say a side job but I got FIRED just a few weeks ago and now it's my primary occupation. I should say I worked in IT for a career for more than 10 years but I am too vocal, and since we were a Windoze shop primarily, I think management didn't much like me, so they laid a bunch of people off but made up a bogus excuse to FIRE me. I think they did me a favor. I eat this stuff, sleep it, and breathe it, and now I can concentrate on doing what I really want to do. I have been doing Linux/Unix consulting since 1996, but only on the side.

I started in this business when I was taking some accounting classes at the University, and I had a computer science elective (on the DEC 10 system) RPG, BASIC+, and COBOL! I thought I wanted to be a programmer, but after I took all the classes and stuff, my first real project ruined it for me. I'm a hardware guy, not a software guy. I can't put my head in the box all day long and be sane, but I love setting up data centers and tuning them so that's where I went. I do exclusively Linux/Unix/Mac consulting and I get my business mostly from WINDOWS techs. One called me yesterday and said her customer had a Linux box - because it was all command line. Turned out to be Novell Netware 6.5! Well, I got the work anyway. Haven't done Novell since 4.11.

-Tim
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