I am not a programmer, sys admin or even a plain "IT" people

I don't even know how to use an electronic computer. I have however written a full Prolog to CIL compiler and a JIT for my slide rule. Once I iron out all the bugs, I hope to move on to electronic computers.

Eventually I would like to work as a professional Malbolge developer for a financial institution.

I am what is called a "suit" and a "troll".

Volmarias:

KattMan:

Careful, downward pilot spirals are much more dangerous! 

Having watched the helicopter version of the driver's ed blooper reel, I'm very well aware of this, thanks.

Fun Fact #1: Helicopters can stall while hovering in one place, at a constant altitude, given favorable atmospheric conditions!

Fun Fact #2: Helicopter stalls are unrecoverable, and usually fatal! :D

It's a little more subtle than that. Helicopters have multiple stall modes - it's not just a matter of speed and angle, like in a fixed-wing craft, there's about ten or twelve different variables involved. Some of those stall modes are recoverable (like "retreating blade stall", where the difference in airspeed between the two blades moving forwards and the two moving backwards at any given time try to flip the craft over), although it's much harder than stall recovery in a fixed wing craft. Others will immediately cause "rotor separation", which is a fancy way of saying that all the blades break off and the craft assumes the aerodynamic attributes of a brick, and those are unrecoverable.

Which is all quite irrelevant, but there's few things which fail quite as interestingly and spectacularly as a helicopter.
 

Joe Luser:

In my current job I am doing a lot of programming in VHDL.

Careful there - that attitude produces some truly worthy WTFs

VHDL is a hardware description language, not a programming language. If you start treating it as a programming language you can do many things that work well in code, but make lousy hardware! 

asuffield:

Others will immediately cause "rotor separation", which is a fancy way of saying that all the blades break off and the craft assumes the aerodynamic attributes of a brick, and those are unrecoverable.

lol 

Full time programmer for 8 years, using Perl and C++.  Been involved with the sysadmin side of programming, mucking about with Linux, Solaris, HP-UX, Tru 64, AIX, HP-UX (most true sysadmin experience on Linux and Solaris).   Also do build mechanic kinds of things, and have to build Perl and tons of modules for use in-house.

"What percentage of people that read this site are full-time programmers?"

If you mean: people that have programming as an important part in their work, the answer is about 95%

If you mean: people that have programming as the only part in their work, the answer will be <50% i think.

I definately fall in the first category, but not in the second. And im glad of that as well :-)
 

Sys admin. Part time programming when necessary. Various languages and platforms.

GettinSadda:

Joe Luser:

In my current job I am doing a lot of programming in VHDL.

Careful there - that attitude produces some truly worthy WTFs

VHDL is a hardware description language, not a programming language. If you start treating it as a programming language you can do many things that work well in code, but make lousy hardware! 

Indeed. And if what I am using VHDL to produce had to be synthesized into hardware, I would care. VHDL can be used to produce testbenches. And if your employer disallows the use of other languages for this purpose, it has to be.

 

I'm on school for general IT, mainly IT-Managing, Systems Managing, helping annoying users.

After the summer I will be on the next school doing Computer Science and hopefully become a programmer.

Joe Luser:

GettinSadda:

Joe Luser:

In my current job I am doing a lot of programming in VHDL.

Careful there - that attitude produces some truly worthy WTFs

VHDL is a hardware description language, not a programming language. If you start treating it as a programming language you can do many things that work well in code, but make lousy hardware! 

Indeed. And if what I am using VHDL to produce had to be synthesized into hardware, I would care. VHDL can be used to produce testbenches. And if your employer disallows the use of other languages for this purpose, it has to be.

OK, that is perfectly fair usage of VHDL programming.

I just get annoyed when I see people "coding" in VHDL as if it was C++ (or more likely Ada!) and then wondering where the abomination of an implementation came from. VHDL compilers are getting pretty good at translating silly stuff into good hardware, but some things just don't work. Ever seen someone try and pass around a variable length string? Recursive code? Yum!!

I'm:

- a software project manager
- who started as a programmer
- but was frequently the IT guy
- and currently works in a test lab

I've done sysadmin work, but I'm very bad at it and tend to run away screaming when people suggest I do more of it.

I'm one, although that describes what I do, not my "position".  I'm technically a lead architect.  I work with IBM 370 (mainframe) assembler, REXX and C++ at work.  I occassionally do the real programming in Java (not fondly), Python, C, and anything else I can figure out and play with at home.

coentje:

If they are not using a hex-editor to do their work they are not real programmers, ok, maybe assemble can be thought of as programming too, i will give you that ;)

So, I am not a programmer, i just dabble a bit with  macro languages like c and c# and stuff like that :)

I personally do all my coding with a sharp magnetized  paper clip.

smbell:

coentje:

If they are not using a hex-editor to do their work they are not real programmers, ok, maybe assemble can be thought of as programming too, i will give you that ;)

So, I am not a programmer, i just dabble a bit with  macro languages like c and c# and stuff like that :)

I personally do all my coding with a sharp magnetized  paper clip.

 And a very steady hand!

morry:

I work with IBM 370 (mainframe) assembler

I'm just going to have a good long laugh. Nice to know that there are people out there who have to suffer more than me. 

asuffield:

morry:

I work with IBM 370 (mainframe) assembler

I'm just going to have a good long laugh. Nice to know that there are people out there who have to suffer more than me. 

hey watch it - I nearly clicked on that little "report abuse" link.  Actually it's turned me into a "old skool" kind of programmer - all these languages that constrain the programmer in order to produce better code just serve to p*ss me off.  As do Megabyte size executables.

Network analyst/support myself.

By day I'm a Linux sysadmin, by night I'm a web dev, mainly Java (with Apache Struts) and PHP (*shudder*)

I'm a developer, mainly Java / J2EE based stuff, although because I work for a relatively small company what I do from day to day has to be pretty flexible.

morry:

I work with IBM 370 (mainframe) assembler

Heh.  I just started teaching myself assembler (on Linux) for fun, and it's very interesting so far but it's nice to be able to tell myself "well, at least I don't have it as bad as those guys who program on 16-bit or older systems."  At least I don't have to worry about low/high partitions and segment registers, I tell myself.  Then I cry anyway because I never knew how good I had it with HLLs :P

I'm a "Support Engineer"
The company I work for makes ActiveX and .NET controls in addition to SDKs.

I write tests and sample code as well as fix customer code. On a daily basis I use C#, VB.NET, VB6, and C++. It's fun, but it gets REALLY annoying to see "Sr. Developer" on a person's signature when they clearly have no idea what they're doing.
 

Biomedical Informatics graduate student, so I do a good bit of programming for class (Perl, Matlab, PHP) and research (C, PHP).