After a month of plodding around with C, one night I sat bolt upright in bed and just suddenly understood pointers. I had written my fair share of BASIC and Pascal before, but I think something in my mind turned over that night. I can't explain it any other way.
Ask HN: When was your "ah-ha" moment when learning how to program?
21–28 of 28 posts
Re: Ask HN: When was your "ah-ha" moment when learning how to program?
#22Started with VIC20 Basic programming. 4 hrs typing from a book, then 2 hrs de-bugging, then no storage so played the sprite game until I was ready to kiss it goodbye and power off.
De-bugging makes you think like a programmer. I can now look at code of a language I do not know and find where the error is by 'gestalt'
Props to taking a VIC20 manual on vacation to Spain. Serious nerd street cred :)
Re: Ask HN: When was your "ah-ha" moment when learning how to program?
#23My teacher used color combinations in Visual Studio that made things unmistakable. After my first dream of sering code in those colors, it was just different. It was far less daunting, and I was much more quick to get in and start tinkering with things rather than "copy him and the book." That's when I started understanding.
Re: Ask HN: When was your "ah-ha" moment when learning how to program?
#24When I saved some data to a database and then printed it back on an html page. Suddenly I could make real interactive websites, not just static web pages.
Re: Ask HN: When was your "ah-ha" moment when learning how to program?
#25I had two. The first was when I was in 7th grade math and was exposed to programming for the first time. We used basic and just did some ascii art stuff. A christmas tree. But I added a clear screen and a goto and that made the tree flash and kinda twinkle. Every one asked me how I did it and I showed them (it didn't work on most of their computers, I guess the refresh rate was juuuust right on my screen). That's what made me interested in computers.
My other was after my first year of college at University of Minnesota (99-00). I had AP comp sci AB so I didn't need to take the first year intro CS classes, but I hung out at the ACM a lot and someone told me about quick-sort or I learned it in class and it was the most complex intricate piece of code I'd ever seen. I was mesmerized by it, but everyone else just bitched about how "crazy" it was. That's when I knew I was in the right major.
I guess a third one would be when every one I knew that was into computers changed their major because it was too hard and I was the only one left. That was a bit of an ah-ha moment I guess.
Re: Ask HN: When was your "ah-ha" moment when learning how to program?
#26I had two. The first was when I was in 7th grade math and was exposed to programming for the first time. We used basic and just did some ascii art stuff. A christmas tree. But I added a clear screen and a goto and that made the tree flash and kinda twinkle. Every one asked me how I did it and I showed them (it didn't work on most of their computers, I guess the refresh rate was juuuust right on my screen). That's wha…
Goto considered inspiring :D
Re: Ask HN: When was your "ah-ha" moment when learning how to program?
#27X=X+1
X = X + 1 was my earliest 'aha' moment. At first it stumped me... there is absolutely no value X such that X = X + 1, so how on earth can this be a valid line of computer code? It really pissed me off.
And it should. The "=" is misused like this. ":=" should've become the norm...
Mathematics and programming are similar in so many regards. No reason to confuse people like this.
Re: Ask HN: When was your "ah-ha" moment when learning how to program?
#28After a month of plodding around with C, one night I sat bolt upright in bed and just suddenly understood pointers. I had written my fair share of BASIC and Pascal before, but I think something in my mind turned over that night. I can't explain it any other way.
I know exactly how you feel; that's how I've learned most of the really cool stuff so far. I just load the formalities into headspace, go do something else, and have a random epiphany anywhere between two minutes and two days later.