On the Shoulders of Giants: Anders Hejlsberg

What an incredible career! I can safely say that no other person has had as big an impact on my technical life. Turbo Pascal, Delphi, C#, TypeScript. Any other mortal would be content with just ONE of these globally influential languages.

A Series: "On the Shoulders of Giants" Part 1/N

Wikipedia; Video: Life and Times of Anders Hejlsberg

Turbo Pascal

At school, Turbo Pascal got me into Comp Sci. BASIC felt old
and clunky compared to the clean syntax and environment the Borlands' Turbo Pascal Provided.

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I should also thank my school teacher Mr. Tweedie who gave me the freedom to grow as I learned to program;
not to mention the access to his extensive CompSci library.

Delphi

Then at university, Turbo Pascal on MS-DOS transformed into Delphi
on Windows3.1 and carried me to win the software development prize. While we worked very hard, Delphi was simply a better faster more consistent platform to
what my classmates chose to use.

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Then the majastic C# and .NET

  • I have been using C# daily since .NET 1.0 preview.
  • That is somewhere around ~7000 days, ~10+ years of consistent everyday use
  • So many projects in so many domains (Finance, Retail, Transport, Logistics, Commodities, e-Commerce)
  • C# paid for my house; C# paid for my travel and recreation. C# is my hobby. It is amazing, that I get paid to do my hobby.

TypeScript

As I became an expert in C# and increasingly reliant on its deep toolchain (ReSharper and Refactoring),
to my horror, the web embraced JavaScript. While JavaScript’s breadth, innovation, cross-platform, and community
are attractive – the syntax is an ever-changing mess and its lack of types make it opaque for part-time users….
Enter Anders again and Enter TypeScript.

Conclusion

Turbo Pascal >> Delphi >> C# >> TypeScript, what I wonderful ride. Thank you Mr. Hejlsberg!