Survey questions

[TweakerFD]

Just some survey questions:

1. How long did it take you to get a good handling of Linux?
2. How old were you when you first started?
3. What was your first programming language?
4. How long did it take you to get a good handle of the language?
5. How long, after you picked you Linux, did you get involved in some open source projects?

[Tyr_7BE]

1) What do you mean by "good handling." I was able to confidently do my work after a few weeks. I was able to confidently troubleshoot after about 8 months. I've been using it exclusively for 3 years now, and my general knowledge of the system is just as good if not worse than it was after 8 months. I found that when everything in Linux was new, I devoured the knowledge like a hungry hungry hippo. I knew Debian inside and out. Then when there was nothing left to learn that held appeal to me, I started branching into other things like development of apps, etc... I'm still learning that kind of thing every day. So in short, 2 weeks to get your work done (probably less nowadays with all the modern fancy distros out there), 6 months to get to know the underlying system.

2) I started when I had just turned 18.

3) Does HTML count? If so, then it's HTML. If not, C++.

4) If we're talking HTML, I learned enough to hack together your standard webpage in 2 weeks in the summer before junior high. However, HTML is a markup language and dead simple to boot. My first real programming language was C++, taught to me through my university (yes, I had never even seen programming languages before I came to university as a computer engineer! Thanks a lot, high school!). Again, it depends on what you mean by "good handle" on the language. The class lasted one term (4 months), and by the time we finished I was as fluent as a new programmer can be expected to be (confident with concepts like abstract classes/virtual functions, templating, inheritence, static members, etc... but without much experience to know how these can be useful).

5) It actually took me longer than I would have liked. I wanted to get involved after my first year of using Linux, but I didn't start doing much 'till after my second year due to just being too busy. So it was a little past my second year mark when I started learning code in earnest. I still am not affiliated with any specific project, but have done patches here and there for various Gnome programs.

What's this survey for, anyway?

[Stuart]

1. A good handling? A year, and I was happy with it.
2. I was fourteen when I started with it, but fifteen before I got really into Linux.
3. Commodore64 BASIC.
4. Seeing as I started at a very young age, I am not really sure.. I picked it up in a month.
5. Well... I am involved in some open-source projects right now, nothing big at all, it's just stuff my friend and I do, we started about two months ago. So it's taken three years.

[quote author=TweakerFD link=board=13;threadid=8243;start=0#msg74761 date=1070559950]
Just some survey questions:

1. How long did it take you to get a good handling of Linux?
2. How old were you when you first started?
3. What was your first programming language?
4. How long did it take you to get a good handle of the language?
5. How long, after you picked you Linux, did you get involved in some open source projects?
[/quote]

1) I don't think I have a good handle on Linux yet - but I do okay with it to take cre of business - there are still LOTS of areas where I know nothing.

2) I was about 17 when I first used Linux, 18 when I switched 100% to Linux, I've been Windows free +4 years now.

3) C++

4) It's a school thing so about 1 year, I still don't master it since I don't program outside of school - I should find a project to code though, C# fx. is a damn good language and I would like to try it out on a real project.

5) about.. 1 year I think, I do mostly support and documentation - bugreporting - fix compile errors, etc. no coding what so ever.

[BurntAsh]

[quote author=TweakerFD link=board=13;threadid=8243;start=0#msg74761 date=1070559950]
Just some survey questions:

1. How long did it take you to get a good handling of Linux?
2. How old were you when you first started?
3. What was your first programming language?
4. How long did it take you to get a good handle of the language?
5. How long, after you picked you Linux, did you get involved in some open source projects?
[/quote]

1. If you mean good handling like knowing my way around and using it as a desktop day to day, it didnt take every long, i was able to use linux in the first week.
2. i think i used linux first (mandrake 7.1) in the year 2000? so id have to be 16 or 17. I am not 100 % converted yet, so i went on and off linux, there was even a time where i was off it for like 6 months without it installed at all.
3. My first programming language was c++ still only know about half the language, once i got to class inheritance, pointers, templates, matrixes, i lost control and flunked out of class.
4. I dont practice c++ much, i dont have a lot of confidence in my coding abilities as much as i want to code. that goes for all languages.
5. ive never been involved in an open source project.

i think the most embarrassing thing for me to say about using linux is that ive still never compiled my first kernel, everytime i try to compile one it just ends up with errors on bootup. :-[

[Ashcrow]

[quote author=TweakerFD link=board=13;threadid=8243;start=0#msg74761 date=1070559950]
Just some survey questions:

1. How long did it take you to get a good handling of Linux?
2. How old were you when you first started?
3. What was your first programming language?
4. How long did it take you to get a good handle of the language?
5. How long, after you picked you Linux, did you get involved in some open source projects?
[/quote]

1.) It took me about a month to be able to be productive with Linux. Before Linux the only Unix experience I had was via cyberspace.org and sdf.lonestar.org where all I did was use lynx and irc. I allready knew the basics because of that, but I was unaware of what projects did what, how to install/upgrade software, how the service worked, etc ...

2.) With Linux? I was 16. With computers in general (use wise) I was 4. And general Unix I was 14.

3.) My first programming language was BASIC (GWBasic to be exact). From there I went to C, and then picked up Perl, Shell, PHP, Java, Python, and a bit of C++.

4.) It was easy to pick up BASIC, but it took me about a year before I was comfortable with C. Before that it seemed so odd to program without line numbers :P.

5.) I wanted to get involved pretty quickly, but I knew I wasn't ready to do so. It took about 2 years before I started to send back patches or work on my own OSS/FSF code for others. Even then I wasn't doing to much. Only recently have I started to do near the amount I would like to.

[TeRG]

[quote author=TweakerFD link=board=13;threadid=8243;start=0#msg74761 date=1070559950]
Just some survey questions:

1. How long did it take you to get a good handling of Linux?
2. How old were you when you first started?
3. What was your first programming language?
4. How long did it take you to get a good handle of the language?
5. How long, after you picked you Linux, did you get involved in some open source projects?
[/quote]
1. about 3 months to where i could sit down and do most BASIC tasks...about a year to where i liked it (yes i forced myself to keep using it because i was tired of getting the blue screen of death)

2. It was back in november 1999..so i would have just turned 14..so like 3 years or so.

3. though i really dont program much, i learned qbasic when i was like 11.

4. hrm, i dont remember..

5. i didnt help out with any projects, but ive been fallowing them all along.

[elovkoff]

1. One year (again 'good handling' needs more definitioin0
2. I was 30 when I started playing aroubnd with this (kate bird I guess). I actually needed to set up snort IDS, here how I started with linux.
3. Not a programmer
4. n/a
5. Right away, we pretty much pro-open-source comany (second biggest law firm in canada), after I started palying around with linux we ended up implementing lots of systems on Linux - squid proxy, antispam, mail redirectors, Websense, IDS, PDF conversion, etc

[elovkoff]

Jeez, I must startin revieweing my messages before posting....or improve my typing skills, thanks god I'm not a secretary - they would kill me for such number of typos.

[cga]

[quote author=TweakerFD link=board=13;threadid=8243;start=0#msg74761 date=1070559950]
Just some survey questions:

1. How long did it take you to get a good handling of Linux?
2. How old were you when you first started?
3. What was your first programming language?
4. How long did it take you to get a good handle of the language?
5. How long, after you picked you Linux, did you get involved in some open source projects?
[/quote]

1. About a year. In 1998 I gave up on my old MacPPC and switched to a home built PC with Windoze. Few months later I started trying Linux. By 1999, I was running Linux full time.

2. 33

3. TRS-80 BASIC

4. A few months.

5. Well, I'm only involved from an advocacy point of view, but I was pretty much go on that from the get-go.