---
title: "The predictable history of a programmer"
url: "https://osherove.com/blog/2003/2/25/the-predictable-history-of-a-programmer.md"
canonical: "https://osherove.com/blog/2003/2/25/the-predictable-history-of-a-programmer.html"
published: "2003-02-25T14:35:00"
updated: "2003-02-25T14:35:00"
tags: []
author: "Roy Osherove"
description: "\"Chris started his obsession with programming when at around the age of ten he started learning BASIC on his Commodore VIC-20 (3.5kb of raw power!). The addiction has never been kicked and since 1994 has concentrated on…"
usage: "Licensed under CC BY 4.0 — reuse, quote and adapt with attribution (Roy Osherove, link to the original page)."
license: "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/"
---

# The predictable history of a programmer

By Roy Osherove February 25, 2003

**Historical article** · Originally published February 25, 2003; technical details may be outdated.

_"Chris started his obsession with programming when at around the age of ten he started learning BASIC on his Commodore VIC-20 (3.5kb of raw power!). The addiction has never been kicked and since 1994 has concentrated on the Internet. "_

\[via [Chrisg.Com](http://chrisg.com/chrisg/DesktopDefault.aspx?tabindex=1&tabid=8)\]

How many of us can say these things on their own "about" page? Probably most , with minor modification. I suggest a global "About me" page, something like the following:

**The history of** : \_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_

\_\_\_\_\_\_\_   started his/her obsession with programming when at around the age of \_\_\_\_\_ he/she started learning BASIC on his/her computer of type  \_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_(\_.\_kb of raw power!).

The addiction has never been kicked and since \_\_\_\_\_\_ has concentrated on \_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_. When the technology of \_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_ by \_\_\_\_\_\_\_ first came out, he/she decided that that is the direction they want to follow, and have learned for their \_\_\_\_\_ title and are now \_\_\_\_\_\_ at \_\_\_\_\_\_\_ for the past \_\_\_ years.


---

## About the author

**Roy Osherove**: Senior Solutions Architect at AWS working on AI for production and AI-driven development; author of The Art of Unit Testing and Elastic Leadership, with about 20 years of consulting and training on unit testing, TDD, team leadership and continuous delivery.

### Sites

- [RobotPaper](https://robotpaper.ai/): This blog: AI patterns and anti-patterns, AI and coding agents, and engineering leadership.
- [osherove.com](https://osherove.com): Roy's personal site. Author of The Art of Unit Testing and Elastic Leadership; consulting and training on unit testing, TDD, team leadership and continuous delivery, plus about 20 years of blog posts.
- [The Art of Unit Testing](https://www.artofunittesting.com): The Art of Unit Testing, 3rd Edition (Manning): readable, maintainable, trustworthy unit tests, plus TDD workshops in C#, JavaScript, Java and Kotlin.
- [5whys.com](https://www.5whys.com): Roy's writing on software team leadership: self-organizing teams, surviving chaos, learning mode and the Elastic Leadership model.
- [Pipeline Driven](https://pipelinedriven.org): Continuous delivery and DevOps practices: build patterns, pipeline-friendly testing, DevOps metrics and enterprise DevOps.
- [Elastic Leadership](https://www.elasticleadership.com): Elastic Leadership, Roy's framework for software team leaders (survival, learning and self-organizing modes).

### Social

- X: https://x.com/royosherove
- LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/osherove/

### Contact

- Contact form: https://forms.gle/jQSx5KoXvrVA1JCK7

### License

Licensed under CC BY 4.0 — reuse, quote and adapt with attribution (Roy Osherove, link to the original page). License: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/