Item — HN Reader

TL;DR - Programming - don't get discouraged, it's hard but possible for anyone really - fun too sometimes! ;)

Really great write-up to share with aspiring programmers of all kinds - debunks a lot of stories many of us tell themselves and others ;)

I hope for more honest personal stories like these (not only for "programming"?) - always great to read about those. The internet (IRC and forums like HN especially) has always been doing that for me and I hope it continues to be that way for others too (anyone willing to learn really).

Edit: I've seen he knows and mentions Julia Evans - I've got the feeling that the Montreal "scene" is on the forefront in terms of inclusivity - big fan here - cheers from the old world :)

1 comments

hehe, my first years of programming were filled with failure.

With 8 years I got a C64 and tried programming on it, but didn't get much going beside some arithmetic and prints.

My next gig was mIRC with 15 years. Copied some scripts to get funny colors going and later build some funny chat bots for games or social experiements.

Then I did a website with PHP, when I was 16 and had some C in high school were I build 2 console games (asteroids etc.)

With 21 I did my first paid website.

As one can see, it took me many many years before I was able to make money with my skills.

When I was 15 I wrote a game on the BBC Micro and sent it in to one of the computer magazines of the day (this was back in 1991, and while the internet may have existed in the UK, nobody had heard of it).

They rejected it (rightfully).

Recently I found the floppy disk, managed to find someone at work with a KryoFlux and a 5.25" floppy drive, and, miracle of miracles, it was readable.

The next question became: what do you do with such an awful thing? The answer is, of course, you run it in emulation on your website.

http://cowlark.com/2015-02-03-bbc-micro

(Don't expect much. It's in Basic.)