Well, I guess this is something I'm going to HAVE to do now that Scott and my brother have been bugging me to do it. Here goes nothing.
How old were you when you first started in programming?
I've always been interested in computers, so the next logical step, for me, was to start building software. When I first started getting serious about programming was when I was about 18 getting into C++ and some of the other languages that I happened to be taking classes in. Sure, I played around with BASIC a bit earlier, but nothing really came of that other than completing assignments for a high/middle-school class at the time and playing around with some stuff.
How did you get started in programming?
After seeing what my brother has done in this field, I hopped over to the Computer Science program at Bowling Green State University. The first year classes were focused around C++, which didn't care for too much (It was a great way to start learning OO concepts, It's just not something I like using much). My brother introduced me to C# a little bit later (which was a complete Godsend).
What was your first programming language?
BASIC. . heck yes
What was the first real program you wrote?
It's been way too long, but I think it was some sort of quiz game that mixed up the questions or something like that. Some pretty hardcore stuff, I know. ;)
What languages have you used since you started programming?
C#, Java, F#, HTML, VB.NET, C++, and some others I don't use very much at all
What was your first professional programming gig?
I'll get back to you in a year or so. (Still in college)
If you knew then what you know now, would you have started programming?
Absolutely. I'm actually kind-of bummed I didn't figure out I liked it so much a bit sooner.
If there is one thing you learned along the way that you would tell new developers, what would it be?
The current platform for developers to speak to each-other is ginormous (for lack of a better word) and is like no other field in the world. If I want to ask Matt Podwysocki or Dustin Campbell (some of the more prominent F# gurus) something about a post they made last week, chances are I'm going to get a response fairly quickly. Utilize this as much as you can and don't be afraid to ask the "dumb" questions. And read!
What's the most fun you've ever had programming?
Little projects with friends have always been a hoot, especially playing around with F# with my brother.
Who am I calling out?
Jean-Paul S. Boodhoo
Dustin Campbell
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Apparently Microsoft's OOXML formats have recently received ISO certification. Good for them. Does this impact my life? Nah.
What I honestly don't understand how so many OSS groups/peoples are whining so incredibly loud over a file format. It's nothing more than a specification for documents. That's it. I don't see it kicking their dogs, nuking the whales or anything that makes any difference in their life. Take NoOOXML.com, for instance. Someone is paying for domain space against a file format.
I'll readily admit I'm pretty dorky, being a programmer and gamer. I even used to use Linux for awhile and I use many OSS applications daily. But if a file format ruins your day, that kind-of takes 'nerd' to a whole new level.
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Apologies for the delay in posting (School has finally been picking up) 
I just found something wonderful: As of yesterday, Microsoft has announced at their GDC keynote the Xbox Live Community Arcade.
This is basically a YouTube for games that are made in XNA. To me, this is HORRIBLY exciting as it makes it much easier to get your creations into peoples hands than the old system which required others to possess a XNA Creators Club subscription to play your game. If you want to try this out, Dave Weller has a post on how to do it here, or Major Nelson has a video right here. Unfortunately, this is only a demo.
Now, to start an XNA project in F#. . . hrmm
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In the past few weeks, as I've written on this here weblog, I've been trying my darndest to learn F#. So far, I've been reading Expert F# by Don Syme, Adam Granicz, and Antonio Cisternino; THE book on F# written by the inventor of F# (If you're at all interested, grab it). While I'm definitely not an expert on the matter yet, hopefully this will help someone, somewhere along the line.
On my quest for complete and thorough erudition of F# through experiencing it first hand, I discovered Project Euler. This is exactly what I was looking for, a platform to think of new ways to implement what I already know about F#, and more importantly what I don't, to solve complex math problems. Sure, this isn't isn't too complex, but this is just number 2 of 180 problems (some of the higher ones are very complicated, but I'll touch on that another day). I definitely recommend the site to anyone who is learning F# (or anybody, really).
Euler Question #2:
Each new term in the Fibonacci sequence is generated by adding the
previous two terms. By starting with 1 and 2, the first 10 terms will
be:
1, 2, 3, 5, 8, 13, 21, 34, 55, 89, ...
Find the sum of all the even-valued terms in the sequence which do not exceed one million.
... And my implementation.
#light
open System.Collections.Generic
let fibList = new Dictionary<int, int>()
let rec fib n = if fibList.ContainsKey(n) then fibList.[n]
elif n < 2 then fibList.[n] <- 1; fibList.[n]
else fibList.[n] <- (fib (n-2) + fib(n-1)); fibList.[n]
let probAns =
[1 .. 30]
|> Seq.map (fun a -> fib(a))
|> Seq.filter (fun x -> x % 2 = 0 && x <1000000)
|> Seq.fold (+) 0
|> printfn "Answer: %d"
Modeling the actual solution (probAns) after Robert Pickering's beautiful implementation of Euler #1:
let problem1 =
[1 .. 999]
|> Seq.filter (fun x -> x % 3 = 0 || x % 5 = 0)
|> Seq.fold (+) 0
printfn "Problem 1 = %d" problem1
(Taken from the comments on Chris Smith's blog)
For me, Euler #2 had been the most absolutely frustrating thing I've run into with F# so far. Alas, I crushed my obstruction (I read the question wrong :[ ) and came out the undisputed victor.
First, I went ahead and popped in my implementation of the fibonacci
sequence. I had read Scott Hanselman's and Dustin Cambell's posts about
fibonacci sequences awhile back and had a super-fast fibonacci sequence
saved on file that I made as soon as I learned how to implement
Dictionaries in F#. It's set up to limit the rediculous amount
of recursion by having a dictionary already that has every number that
has already passed through. You say it's not in the dictionary? No
problem! It'll compute the value for n and toss it in the dictionary for super-fast look-up the next time around. There may be better ways of implementing the Fibonacci sequence out there that I just don't know of yet. If anyone has suggestions feel free to post in the comments. Alright, that's out of the way.
[1 .. 30]
|> Seq.map (fun a -> fib(a))
Now the actual solution. I went ahead and set up a sequence of 1 to 30 ([1 .. 30]) in probAns. (The number 30 itself doesn't matter very much. I just went for overkill to make sure that the sequence would eventually go over 1,000,000 when applied to my Fibonacci function) I took this sequence and passed it to the Seq.map aggregate operator using the forward pipe operator.
this guy: |>
The forward pipe operator kind-of applyis the function order backwards; pushing the values in before the aggregate operator rather than behind the function. I could've implemented it as "Seq.map (fun x -> fib(x)) probAns", but for that to work I would have to toss the mapped value into a completely different sequence. That's NOT what we want. The forward pipe operator makes life much easier.
|> Seq.filter (fun x -> x % 2 = 0 && x <1000000)
Back on topic, this returned a new sequence with the values of [1 .. 30] run through the Fibonacci function. I now have a sequence full of EVERY Fibonacci value from 1 to 30. It looks like we need to find just the even-valued terms, so I ran the Fibonacci-filled sequence through the Seq.filter aggregate operator. To filter, a boolean function is tossed in (in this case, fun x -> x % 2 = 0 && x <1000000) and filtered based on which values inside the sequence are true. Now we have everything we need, now it's time to put it all together.
|> Seq.fold (+) 0
|> printfn "Answer: %d"
Seq.fold passes a function through the whole sequence along with an accumulator and accumulates(go figure) to return a single, nice, beautiful int (in this case). All that's left is to output the answer, which is done by using the forward pipe operator along with printfn. One of the nice things about printfn is that the format strings are type-safe, which is why %d is in my printfn statement. If you want to learn a bit more about this, check out Dustin's blog (linked below). That's it! +1%
If you're at all interested in hearing about some of the other amazing stuff in F#, check out Dustin Campbell's series on why he loves F# too.
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After hearing about it enough on Dustin Cambell's blog, I'm finally taking the initiative to learn AND master the F# language.
How am I doing this? First off, I've recently started reading Expert F#, a book written by the inventer of F#, and so far, it's been amazing. Secondly, I'm writing this weblog! I'm doing this so that I, and potentially others like me (OO programmers), can keep track of exactly what I'm learning and how awesome it really is. On this page, I'll also be keeping track of the more interesting bits of the internet that I've run into on any given day.
More to come!
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