Yeah, five years ago I wrote my first large project, a sound editor. I wrote it in Delphi. The code was really HORRIBLE. No OO, very poor structure, large 3-screen window message handlers, almost pure spagetti code with one-letter var names. I can’t understand by now, how I managed to make that whole thing work. But I DID!
Since than everything has changed. One year of Delphi excersising with proper code formatting, commenting, and testing
Than C with deep understanding of modular and structure paradigms
Than C++ and studying OO analisys, design coding.
Now I’m using C# generally. It’s not so powerfull as C++ 'course but with VS 2005 environment coding in C# became rather convinient.
'Course not that my code is perfect now - oppositely it’s awful (as well as spelling) but I’m greatly thankfull to my teachers for getting me to know that coding skill isn’t all about knowing a language.
five years ago, i was in college too. no code was written.
Five years ago, I worked at Microsoft as an escalation engineer – debugging other people’s code.
Today, I’m writing a file system filter driver for Windows. Over the last couple of years, I’ve written .NET user controls in C#.
Working with a really good developer who spanked me every time I did something stupid made my coding improve significantly.
I still need a lot more improvement though…
Five years ago I was cleaning pots in London restaurants in London… after three years coding in C++, ASP, Java and the likes. I am sure that if I could look to the code I would scream and laugh quite a lot… Back now to hardcore Win32 C++ and C#.
I am sure my approach/toolset is way better now…
Five years ago, I just got used to Win98 for not long (I had my first PC at Dec 1999). I was learning about HTML and javascript that time. Now I can write a bit on C C++ with some reference, because I don’t write often and forget about the standard library occasionally.
I honestly don’t know how any computer professional could stumble through a career without realising the importance of regular expressions. They’re quite fundamental, and have been around for a little bit longer than five years.
This is scary - millions of apps five year old apps still running and we were all horrible programmers at the time?
Five years ago I was in Gen Pop serving out the remainder of my fraud/embezzlement conviction.
Now I work at a MAJOR brokerage firm writing code…
LOL, I’m doing this now! not that I’m any kind of programmmer…
" VBScript code at that time, in the form of Windows Script Host scripts "
I just retired the “application” I wrote five years back. It was a utility to take data from our main CRM database and massage it for use with various output formats we needed that the CRM package did not directly support.
Anyhow, it did do some things well, such as work virtually error free for 5 years once the initial bugs were worked out. And I did do a reasonably good job of separating things into distinct layers.
What I did wrong, or at least “interesting” was that it was an access application. And it pretty much ran the entire transform in VBA. I realize now that the 1200 line main transform method could have been replaced by three or so SQL queries. But such is life.
Looking back at my code from five years ago, the main question that comes to mind is: “Good freaking lord, why the *** was I ever so enamored with Hungarian notation?”
Five years ago i was an accountant. i rolled into IT by leading an ERP implementation 4 yrs ago. since 2003 i learned sql,vb6,dotnet from books and colleagues, and now i’m beginning with ASP.net so i basically started from zero. now i can do accounting and some IT. i think that’s an asset. i really like programming now.
Five years ago I was a Borland Delphi developer worrying about how I was going to avoid being typecast as such. Now I am a C#/JavaScript/TSQL/Delphi developer writing websites using VS 2005.
Yes looking at old code can be very scary. I remember first encountering OO and writing over complicated code using far more classes and flexibilty than was needed.
five years ago I fell into the Financial Services Industry, and have been held captive by MF programmers who think a relational database is just an alter form of VSAM I/O to COBOL code. plz save me.
5 years ago I wasn’t coding like I do now but then a lot has changed since then. Five years ago the agency I worked for thought the Flash was the future and the only way to make a website look good.
5 years ago, I worked at my first job as a C++ software engineer. At this moment, I was developing a GIS application.
Five years ago? I was in college,
and I thinked I should became
a seller.
5 years ago I writing some simple coding in PASCAL. My Knowledge was lack about programming and algorithm. I losing my self when I can simple showing a text in the monitor. “Hello World!!”. 
Five years ago, I am a student in middle shool,
but I was studying the c++ and QBasic language.