I must have been 6 or 7 with Windows 95 at home and I double-clicked that mysterious black and orange hazard icon on my dad's desktop. Duke Nukem proceeded to captivate me, then I blinked, and now I'm over 30.
Ask HN: How did your passion for computer stuff start?
21–30 of 38 posts
Re: Ask HN: How did your passion for computer stuff start?
#22My fascination with computers started when I watched the movie Hackers (1995) [1]. I just liked the idea of the underdogs upping the ante over their well-funded bureaucrats and being smart and stubborn. Even though this was rather a bland movie (by today's standards), I appreciate the fact that this movie pushed me into the realms of software and computers in general.
Re: Ask HN: How did your passion for computer stuff start?
#23Games
It's the gateway drug. Gaming (at least used to) gets you into save-file editing, then into modding, then into programming.
Not to mention all the general IT fiddle-frigging that was involved in making games run, or fixing your PC after something went disastrously wrong with that, and you needed to get it back in a working state before the parents noticed that you'd broken the computer...
Re: Ask HN: How did your passion for computer stuff start?
#24I must have been 6 or 7 with Windows 95 at home and I double-clicked that mysterious black and orange hazard icon on my dad's desktop. Duke Nukem proceeded to captivate me, then I blinked, and now I'm over 30.
Same here, it started when I found Duke Nukem's Penthouse Paradise and Leisure Suit Larry 6 on my dads PC.
Re: Ask HN: How did your passion for computer stuff start?
#25I don't think I have a passion for "computer stuff", but I really enjoy the craft of programming (and related application design and experience design and general hacky problem solving).
When I was a kid, home computers were barely a thing. We had one, but I only played with it. I thought maybe I'd grow up to be an architect. I took a few programming classes in middle school (logo and basic), but I started messing around with web pages in high school in the late 90's--mostly for publishing, since I liked to write and draw. JavaScript code was relatively small and rarely obfuscated then, so I learned a lot by reading the source of pages with cool layouts or effects. Haven't stopped since then.
Turns out there's a whole field where you can design things to solve problems or create experiences and make them come into being just by thinking about them carefully (and writing down your thoughts). The feedback loop for satisfaction and learning is very tight compared to architecture.
Re: Ask HN: How did your passion for computer stuff start?
#26When I originally went to university, I went for music because I thought it was fun.
However, I was terrible at my music classes because I didn't enjoy many of them. Theory, conducting, and just doing scales all day. At some point I was determined to turn things around, and I decided to build an excel spreadsheet to help figure out what I needed to make in order to bring my grades up.
This was when I discovered VBA for excel. I had never programmed before, but I thought it was such a fun challenge. So I ended up making this over-engineered gradebook for my classes... At the end of the semester my grades were awful, but I changed schools, got my GPA back up, and changed my major to CS.
Re: Ask HN: How did your passion for computer stuff start?
#27Oregon trail on an apple 2 in kindergarten.
Then taking apart my parent's IBM work computer to see how it worked, mostly got it back together..
Found a book on basic in the library around age 8 and was hooked.
Re: Ask HN: How did your passion for computer stuff start?
#28Writing simple programs was a blast. Then I learned they could be simply interfaced to external circuits.
Re: Ask HN: How did your passion for computer stuff start?
#29The amount of money I could make not doing computer stuff was quickly eclipsed by the amount of money I make doing computer stuff.
Re: Ask HN: How did your passion for computer stuff start?
#30I've been coding since I was about 10, though not well. It was more messing around with computers and playing video games. I think I was mostly interested once I discovered all the things computers could do - but I didn't know how to do them.
Around the time I was looking to get serious about coding, my friend mentioned he attended a sort of code club. I was immediately curious and looked it up. It turned out to be run together with Hack Club[0], an organization helping kids run computer science clubs internationally. Unfortunately, I didn't go to his high school (and there wasn't one at mine) so I was unable to attend his coding club. However, I could still join the Hack Club Slack[1] where I've been helped by many (and have begun to help others).
I'm looking forward to starting a Hack Club at my high school this upcoming school year, and hope many more can have the experience I had, sooner. I don't work for Hack Club but can personally recommend them.
[0]: https://hackclub.com