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50 years of code - and I didn’t plan it this way

Mark Ripley

04 Feb 2026 • 1 min read

Next year will mark 50 years since I first started writing code.

At the time, I had no idea I was starting a career. I was just fascinated by the idea that you could tell a machine what to do - and it would actually do it.

My first experiences were on a Tandy TRS-80, followed not long after by an RM 380Z. By today’s standards, they were painfully limited: tiny amounts of memory, slow processors, no safety nets, no abstractions to hide behind.

But that was the point.

Every line mattered.
Every assumption mattered.
If your data was wrong, the program didn’t fail gracefully - it failed immediately, and often spectacularly.

Long before I had the language for it, those early machines taught me a lesson that has stayed with me ever since:

Computing is unforgiving of sloppy thinking.

Over the decades that followed, the technology changed almost beyond recognition:

from 8-bit micros to enterprise platforms
from handwritten assembly to modern frameworks
from single-user programs to deeply interconnected systems

But the fundamentals didn’t change at all.

Good outcomes still depend on:

clear intent
well-structured data
and understanding what the system is actually doing

I didn’t plan to spend my life working with data, systems, and technology. I moved through games development, enterprise software, retail, supply chains, integrations, and product data - often following problems rather than titles.

Looking back now, though, the path feels obvious.

This site is a place to reflect on some of the things I’ve learned along the way - often the hard way - about data, systems, technology, and the long patterns that repeat themselves beneath the surface of “new” ideas.

It’s also where I’ll explore why those experiences eventually led me to build VendorSauce, and how my thinking about data and AI has evolved over time.

This is the first post in an ongoing series. There’s no grand plan - just an honest attempt to write down what five decades of building software has taught me so far.

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