The Evolution of a Programmer
Usually around major holidays I become a bit more reflective and I "Reflected" recently on my kinda / sorta "evolution as a programmer". I started programming seriously on an Apple IIe (and a bit on Commodore 64's) - at the time I was a broker with Merrill Lynch in Orlando, and I was fascinated by the Technical Analysis Department up in New York. These guys, like Bob Farrell and Phil Rettew, who've become legendary, would post their daily market calculations on the Quotron screens (for those who aren't old enough to know, the Quotron system was a hard-wired network with small monitors and keyboards for the brokers. The monitor had a screen with one glorious color - "puke green"). I started out copying down the TRIN, put/call and other indicators onto graph paper with colored pencils. It was fascinating (so fascinating that I eventually left the business when I realized I was more interested in technical analysis than sales!). While other brok...