About Brent
Brent has been writing software since at least the 90s. Maybe even the 80s, if you could playing around with making MS-DOS 6 batch file based games. He got his start back in the
The Early Years
I was born in 1981, so really jsut at the start of the personal computer era. The Apple II was already around for a few years, and the IBM PC had come out a few months before I was born. Like a lot of things, the timing was right.
You might think that I come from a techie family, but my father was actually a Dallas Firefighter and my mother did crafts and things like that until she eventually pursued becoming a nurse. The rest of my extended family is kind of the same, and nobody was involved in any kind of tech. But my dad is a verify curious fellow. He does everything, pursues a lot of hobbies, and was responsible for getting me started by bringing home a computer.
TI-99
The TI-99 was a computer that was made by Texas Instruments. It was a small silver box with a keyboard and a cartridge slot. You could load games through cartridges or through a cassette tape player. Yeah, a computer that you stored programs on tapes ... regular old cassette tapes! I don't think I'll ever forget the sounds that you would hear while loading a game.
Certifications
I really enjoy learning new things and having a test to demonstrate some amount of knowledge. I wish that there were more reasons to pursue certifications and update them regulrarly! Unfortunately, I haven't seen them really asked for a lot in job listings and I think that's a drain on this opportunity.
Just writing this, I'm realizing how long it has been since I last sat for one. The last time I did one, it was becuase I was at the COMMON Conference and they happened to be offering various ceritification tests. I signed up and dropped in for a test, and haven't been to another conference or found another opportunity since! Yeesh, the time goes by!
- Microsoft Certified Application Developer, C#.NET 2.0, 2006
- IBM Certified Specialist, ILE RPG Programmer, 2011