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Excluding the (not tech related) temping I did during school/after graduation my entire professional career's been with my current employer; I'm coming up on my 9th anniversary here. We're a contractor so I haven't worked on just one thing my entire time; but the rapid turn over of many contracts combined with our biggest customer (the US Govt) being on an austerity kick the last few years things are rather shaky at present although I think my current safety window is longer than it's been for a while.
Did you ever see history portrayed as an old man with a wise brow and pulseless heart, waging all things in the balance of reason?
Is not rather the genius of history like an eternal, imploring maiden, full of fire, with a burning heart and flaming soul, humanly warm and humanly beautiful?
--Zachris Topelius
Training a telescope on one’s own belly button will only reveal lint. You like that? You go right on staring at it. I prefer looking at galaxies.
-- Sarah Hoyt
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I have been in the dev businness for around 15 years, and the count goes: 1 company only.
However, that company went through a bit more than half a dozen names thanks to various merging and acquisition: eXplora, Usweb, Usweb/CKS, marchFirst (ah those wild years 2000/2001), Unilog, Logica and now CGI....
I started in the UK, and lived there for 5 years and came back to my home country 10 years ago without resigning (I resigned in the UK to work for the same company but in a french branch).
I'm currently serving my notice period, I'm moving on and will start working for a new employer who is not a ITS company.
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Great question!!
I have been a developer for 17 years and have worked for 5 companies:
1 is in hibernation as its owner wakes it up only when a project comes up, cashes the first payment and dissappears. 
3 are alive and prosperous. 
1 was a startup that died a year after I left. 
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This is an interesting question.
30yrs, 10 Companies, but very skewed.
4 of them were "short" (in months) because the match was not good, or it was an internship.
[I was hired to do OS/2 programming, but they cancelled that and put me in a mainframe group, LOL.
This is just over 14months total time for all 4 of them. Once company hired me, and then merged
with another company my first week on the job. I think it was rude of them to offer me the position,
but the manager who hired me had no idea it was happening.]
So that leaves 6 companies in reality, in roughly 28 years, which feels more appropriate.
I tend to stick around a few years.
3 of the 6 companies are no longer around (one is dying slowly, having laid everyone but the owner off)
Again, an interesting question.
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Company 1 (WordPerfect) merged with Company 2 (Novell) in 1994.
Company 2 sold off my part of what it obtained from Company 1 to Company 3 (Corel) in 1996.
Left Company 3 later in 1996 to join Company 4 (Mirror Software).
Company 4 went into receivership in 1999, layed off all employees, and sold all IP to Company 4a Canfield Scientific.
Returned to Company 2 in 1999.
Left Company 2 (this time on my own terms) in 2009 to join Company 5 (IDENTiTY AUTOMATiON) where I remain.
The product I developed at Companies 1, 2 (the first time around) & 3 (WordPerfect) is still sold by Company 3 18 years later, largely unchanged from when I left it and I believe is responsible for the bulk of that company's revenue.
The product I developed at Company 4 is still being sold largely unchanged by Company 4a.
The product I developed at Company 2 the second time around (Novell Identity Manager) is still being sold by NetIQ, a subsidiary of the Attachmate Group which acquired Novell after I left, and is responsible for a large portion of NetIQ's revenue.
Company 5 is thriving and growing selling products I continue to develop.
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I got laid off from Novell just before the merger fiasco began--it still amazes me that regardless of the friendship between Noorda and Ashton, Novell paid $1.1 billion for a company arguably worth no more than a third of that. My youngest brother went through the WordPerfect/Novell/Corel thing.
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I've been at this 34 years.
Companies: 11 (not counting current position)
Still around: 7
The companies that are not around any more were mostly not small companies, but stripped for their assets and left to rot. Didn't take long.
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14 years experience
4 companies
One folded the branch I worked at after 4 years (I was picked up by the sub-contractor),
I left that sub a couple years later out of boredom after programming myself out of a job,
Another (non-profit) paid ludicrous wages for 9 months then could no longer afford me,
Lastly my current position...
All still exist and the current corp is a goliath that will "never" die, going on 7 years working for them. I do get (small) raises yearly and the pay/work/commute/people combo is hard to beat so I am grateful. I must upgrade my skills though, it is easier to get complacent when doing the same job for an extended period, hard to leave when that job is awesome. I may move to the white hot cyber security realm from my web development background...if I can just motivate myself to study/work after a long workday ends...*sigh*
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I'm on 24 years;
Two companies in that time, although the 2nd company bought my service under a transfer of undertaking during an asset sale, so technically I'm still on one.
My first company was BP, it is still around...the gulf incident could have changed that had they not got it under control.
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Total of 4 companies, all long term jobs.
Defunct: 2
Active: 2
50% survival rate.
"Courtesy is the product of a mature, disciplined mind ... ridicule is lack of the same - DPM"
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Over 40 years of programming professionally, I've worked for 9 other companies besides my current position.
I should have had my head examined for staying at one company for 17 years before being downsized, but it was a steady paycheck despite management problems.
Of those 9, only 1 still exists (2 if you count being purchased by another company).
One company announced bankruptcy the day after my last (I had quit), so I guess they rightly concluded they could not continue without me. That's my story and I'm sticking to it. They were a very large company and I was quite surprised when I heard the news.
One, in particular, all ex-employees are particularly bitter about. We had thought we had a winning combination of products and talent, but management drove us into the ground. They thought they could do no wrong and stopped paying attention to what they were doing and partied it up.
Psychosis at 10
Film at 11
Those who do not remember the past, are doomed to repeat it.
Those who do not remember the past, cannot build upon it.
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I'm SW developer for last 27 years. I worked in 3 countries.
My record:
Russia(USSR) - 2 companies - not exits
Finland - 1 may be exist
Israel - 10 ( 3 - exists and 7 startups closed/sold/bankruptcy )
so what?
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I thought my wife was joking when she said she wanted to go to a Monkees' concert in Switzerland, then I saw her face, now I'm in Geneva.
speramus in juniperus
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Here's your coat... and your hat. Git! 
Will Rogers never met me.
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and weave, it makes you a harder target - and you need to make it as difficult as posible
You cant outrun the world, but there is no harm in getting a head start
Real stupidity beats artificial intelligence every time.
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I think you need to "Take A Giant Step" of a short pier
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And that's when the fight started?
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Nagy Vilmos wrote: then I saw her face, now I'm in Geneva
Ha ha ha - I have to say that is one of your best.
[... because I know the words to the song!]
Never moon a werewolf.
- Harvey
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(Not going to the Monkees convention in March... Saw Mike this past August, though.)
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Well i was working on a User Input Dialogue and nearly finished it after 2 hours of trying and designing it in visual Studio when suddenly the doubleclick on this form happend and i intuitively clicked on undo...
Yep i didn't save anything in that time and undoing designerchanges is permanently 
2 hours of work done to it again 
if(this.signature != "")
{
MessageBox.Show("This is my signature: " + Environment.NewLine + signature);
}
else
{
MessageBox.Show("404-Signature not found");
}
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Ahhh yes... I've been bitten by that before too.
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CTRL S obsessive compulsive disorder is your friend...
“That which can be asserted without evidence, can be dismissed without evidence.”
― Christopher Hitchens
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GuyThiebaut wrote:
CTRL SHIFT S obsessive compulsive disorder is your friend... |
Trust me...FTFY!
Never underestimate the power of stupid things in large numbers
--- Serious Sam
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My thoughts exactly. I have a direct connection between my optic nerve and the fingers on my left hand. When the optic nerve detects an asterisk in a tab, it tells the fingers Ctrl+Shift+S.
Software Zen: delete this;
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