So one day I'm minding my own business working at my job and Bill and George come up to me and say "What are you going to do?" I said "I'm doing this".
"Computers are going to be big"
That's what the forman Bill B. at United Stairs Corp. in Keyport New Jersey told me in 1985.
Bill had a future nephew named Bill that was signed up to go to DeVry and would also be starting work at United Stairs while attending DeVry.
So Bill told me "You have to go to Devry".
I had been working at United Stairs since the day I turned 18 in 1983. I was 17 and looking for work and my friend Robert K. put in the good word for me so I went there to apply. Robert worked there as well as his sister Sandy at the time. They told me to come back when I was 18. So the morning of my birthday the day I turned 18 I was there at 7AM ready to start work.
Bill was right.
In 1980 there were about 15,000 software developers in the US.
Though I had been exposed to computer programming in the 1970s at AirCo Chemicals and Plastics / Air Products and Chemicals, Inc. In the late 1980s is when I became interested in the field and began learning, shell, Pascal, C, and others.
In 1990 there were about 150,000 software developers in the US.
In 2000 there were about 700,000 software developers in the US.
In 2010 there were about 1,000,000 software developers in the US.
In 2020 there were about 2,000,000 software developers in the US.