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Ask HN: How did you learn to code?
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Re: Ask HN: How did you learn to code?
#2I don't feel like I ever learned how to code. The first program I wrote was in Flash, it moved a little triangle spaceship around a small frame and shot lasers. I had no idea what was going on. Later in college I wrote a lot of Python, like Django and simple algorithms. Still had no idea what was going on. After college I wrote lots of JavaScript targeting Web APIs and DOMs and strange frameworks. Still confused. We were serving on the order of 100,000,000 people a day, kind of just made it up as I went along. Now I write Elixir, and still only have a fuzzy idea of what I'm doing, but eventually it starts to work with the features and reliability I want.
I suppose all of this is to say I still feel like I'm learning! If I ever feel like I have finished the learning process it will probably be on my death bed!
Re: Ask HN: How did you learn to code?
#3TI-83, a few afterthought programs in my precalc textbook, and a bunch of bored afternoons in class. This would be back in '06 or so.
Re: Ask HN: How did you learn to code?
#4I “learned” to code in Visual Basic 6 to create programs mainly for AOL chat rooms (games, etc.) when I was a kid. I was more of a script kiddie than anything else, but I got hooked pretty quickly. Good times!
Re: Ask HN: How did you learn to code?
#5neopets was definitely a factor, who else? And "hacking" school computers, windows use to let you make folder backgrounds with html, could do some funny stuff.
Re: Ask HN: How did you learn to code?
#6I think the very first code I wrote was in QBasic, but the first _real_ code I wrote was in Visual Basic 6. I drew a row of dice and then a bunch of buttons and wrote a Yahtzee game (single player). It took me weeks and it was mostly a giant nested if statement.
Good times.
Re: Ask HN: How did you learn to code?
#7On the brand new and shiny 486 running dos and windows 3.1 that my father bought, on the qbasic language. With only a paper book as reference. No llm, no stackoverflow, no pageranked search engine, no internet, and not even Ctrl+F. In these days when you had a bug, you could chew on it for days.
Re: Ask HN: How did you learn to code?
#8[deleted]
Re: Ask HN: How did you learn to code?
#9I wanted to cheat in video games. To cheat in video games. For the first couple of years I was content using the offsets published by others, but eventually I wanted to reverse the games myself. That's where people told me that the best way go get good at reverse engineering was to get good at programming.
That set the train moving.
Re: Ask HN: How did you learn to code?
#10qbasic mainly using previous generation books eg https://usborne.com/gb/books/computer-and-coding-books
Personally find p5js/The Coding Train is the closest thing around to a modern equivalent.