We didn't have a computer but I read that and loved it. A friend had an Apple II and I got to try out some of the stuff round at his house. Later on when I was in year 9 (1985) I got my first computer ,an Apple //c and I did more BASIC and some assembler. Then uni in 1989 where we learnt Miranda, Modula-2, etc etc. Made the transition to Java in 1997.
Ask HN: How did you learn coding
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Re: Ask HN: How did you learn coding
#12Re: Ask HN: How did you learn coding
#13It's always been about creating something.
Re: Ask HN: How did you learn coding
#14As for why...what on earth is more fun than coding?!
(edit: I see there's an HP laptop called the HP 2000. I mean this one: http://www.hpmuseum.net/display_item.php?hw=411)
Re: Ask HN: How did you learn coding
#15Re: Ask HN: How did you learn coding
#16Extending on this... Are universities the best place to get a CS education these days?
I taught full time at a community college for half a decade in a vocational programming degree. I tried to slip as much useful theory into the courses as I could, but ultimately they were terminal voc-tech degrees like welding and auto mechanic that enabled the graduates to go to work at entry level developers at local employers (primarily state government).
I often wondered "what is it that we do here?" since everything I would teach was available online, and more, and better, and free! But many students just need someone to be there and guide them through things (this is why the online courses our department tried to do were a disaster). For a self motivated independent learner, they would no doubt go crazy in the on-the-rails structured courses.
For computer science, the science part, where you primarily investigate computational-related mathematics, I think a formal education from a university is invaluable. But only a small fraction of software development jobs (if that's what you want to do) need that level of rigor.
Re: Ask HN: How did you learn coding
#17Re: Ask HN: How did you learn coding
#18I learned how to program on a TI-83 graphing calculator. I was bored in class and I made a simple text-based blackjack game. Later my friends and I would use the link cable to share programs between our calculators, and I would pour over the source code and try to understand everything. There was an ASCII fighting game I loved and I added new moves and characters. Once I learned how to "view source" a website I start…
Took AP CS in high school on a whim just for the credit and haven't looked back since, been at it for 18 years now. Thinking about a sabbatical though as of late.
Re: Ask HN: How did you learn coding
#19Extending on this... Are universities the best place to get a CS education these days?
Re: Ask HN: How did you learn coding
#20It was clear that I enjoyed that, and I enjoyed the old DOS games at the time, and my dad had a bit of an IS background at the time, so he encouraged me and together we did some BASIC programming together. I also eventually got one of those Lego Mindstorms kits as one of the other commenters mentioned when they came out, which probably would've been around age 7 or 8.
I just took off by myself after that. Playing around more with basic, eventually learning some basic frontend stuff so I could show off webpages to my friends, and then moving on to some Java after that.
It's been a passion ever since.