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What was it like to self-learn programming before Stack Overflow? (2016)

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Re: What was it like to self-learn programming before Stack Overflow? (2016)

#271

Post by musesum »

defined wrote: post #240
musesum wrote: post #138

I was lucky. Our high school system shared a DEC PDP-8. This was in 1974. Each year, Digital equipment would publish a manual. Some years were better than others. Somewhat like a vintage wine. The choice of languages for the PDP-8 were Basic, Fortran, and Focal. It also had a user group called Decus, which shared code - somewhat akin to GitHub. But, I didn't use much of that code, as it usually meant hand entering th…

> I was lucky. Our high school system shared a DEC PDP-8. This was in 1974. Luxury! (Monty Python "Four Yorkshiremen" reference) In 1974 I was (the equivalent of) a junior in high school in South Africa. Back then we called it "Form 4", fwiw. * Number of computers at high school: Zero * Number of computers to which we had access: Zero A friend and I joined the school computer club. I think we were the only members. W…

And yet here we are. It appears that all roads lead to hacker news.

> "Four Yorkshiremen"

Zero computers? Ok, you win.

This is a later version of our computer https://youtu.be/NtAF-WfWyGU

To load the OS, you first had to hand key in a bootstrap loader in octal (base 8) on the front panel. The loader would then read the OS from paper tape into magnetic core.

Our computer was a PDP-8/i. Someone mentioned that the PDP-8/i was about as powerful as a Raspberry Pi. So, imagine a half dozen schools timesharing a Raspberry Pi.

Currently, I'm writing for the Apple Watch, which is more powerful than a Cray-2 -- a supercomputer that cost $16 Million in 1984.

Re: What was it like to self-learn programming before Stack Overflow? (2016)

#272

Post by nubbins »

dpcan wrote: post #163

Personally, I don't find learning to program new things as much fun as I did when I was 13-20. I would learn assembly, c++, basic, etc, all from books I got from Hastings or the local computer store. I didn't know if what I was doing had already been done, I struggled and struggled and struggled until I figured out the right answer, learning how other things worked with every failure. Now, jumping straight to the rig…

I find looking up Java or similar answers to be almost universally unsatisfying, usually its just "use this library in this way and don't worry about behind the scenes", but then looking up answers to C questions I have to understand the logic of the solution so its much more worthwhile.

Re: What was it like to self-learn programming before Stack Overflow? (2016)

#273

Post by pjmlp »

VLM wrote: post #241
pjmlp wrote: post #147

I started coding at the age of 10 in the early 80's, using a Timex 2068. My first source of information were the computer provided manuals, with them I got to learn Basic and overall computer architecture. Then back on those days there were lots of books targeted to get kids to learn programming. With them I got to improve my Basic skills, learn Z80 Assembly and enjoy typing Assembly via hexdumps. Later I started rea…

"learn Z80 Assembly" There was a series of disassembled and commented ROM and OS series named "Journey to the center of the ROM" for the TRS80 family and that was very instructive for me. Sort of like "Lions Commentary on UNIX" but a decade later for Z80 rather than unix v6. Something to realize is back in the old days even the old timers only had like two years of experience writing Z80 code. And you were limited by…

There was a ROM disassembly for the 48K Spectrum as well, but as things were on those days, I only got my hands on the book when I was already using a 80386 SX PC and it happened to land on the local library.

I eventually bought it, more due to nostalgia than anything else.

Re: What was it like to self-learn programming before Stack Overflow? (2016)

#274

Post by ojiikun »

primarily, we learnt by example and experiment rather than by query. to start we sought out every bit of sample code we could find in magazines, books, or usenet posts. we downloaded, printed, and read full manuals. when code failed, we tweaked every possible parameter and tested to see what changed. in a way, TDD was the (very manual) norm because it was the only option.

Re: What was it like to self-learn programming before Stack Overflow? (2016)

#275

Post by dkersten »

As verbose and annoying to read MSDN and Microsoft documentation in general can be, I learned a lot of visual basic and the win32 API as a kid by reading the offline documentation. If it hadn't been so verbose and annoying, I don't think I would have been able to, as once I got accustomed to it, it provided great detail -- enough that beginner-me could piece everything together and write simple games using GDI and other win32 API stuff.

I also learned Python in ~2000 or ~2001 using their offline documentation and the occasional online session (didn't have internet at home at the time, but wasn't completely offline either).

Re: What was it like to self-learn programming before Stack Overflow? (2016)

#276

Post by dnautics »

jcl wrote: post #259
dnautics wrote: post #254

Earlier quoted context omitted.

yep, google had a better indexing of the net and also had exact string search. Altavista only had exact string search (which was better than yahoo). Since then, google no longer reliably gives you exact string searches.

I've noticed Google is pretty good about finding exact matches when you put the search terms in quotes.

Used to be better.

Re: What was it like to self-learn programming before Stack Overflow? (2016)

#277

Post by fivestar »

alanbernstein wrote: post #232
throwanem wrote: post #155

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Experts' Exchange, which was basically an earlier version of Stack Overflow Expert Sex Change was garbage , though. If it hadn't been as terrible as it was throughout its life, Stack Overflow wouldn't have taken off nearly as easily or as well as it did. I mean, I like to grouse as much as the next graybeard over how SO has gone downhill - and it has - but it's still miles and miles better than the metaphorical and…

What's your problem with the current state of SO?

One problem is that the correct answers have to change over time and SO does not account for that except by having drive-by downvotes from dweebies who have no business even answering questions.

I used to answer questions on SO, but got so tired of arguing with idiots that I decided it wasn't worth my time anymore. It's too bad, too, because I strongly believe in "giving back" where I can and SO was a way to do that. No more. I still google for answers on there all the time, though.

Re: What was it like to self-learn programming before Stack Overflow? (2016)

#278

Post by fivestar »

adrianratnapala wrote: post #242
alanbernstein wrote: post #232

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What's your problem with the current state of SO?

On SO I pride(d) myself on asking good questions. That is formulating the question clearly and precisely was itself a kind of investigation. Often, the question never go finished, because the work of writing it up caused me to solve my original problem. Probably SO should have weighted question upvotes at least as high as an answer upvote. Now it would take stronger medicine: e.g. pushing questions by people with low…

You could do a blog of your own to capture whatever it is you found out.

Re: What was it like to self-learn programming before Stack Overflow? (2016)

#279

Post by mondainx »

jslabovitz wrote: post #69

I'm self-taught, and now in my 50s. I started programming when I was 10, in 1976. In those earliest days of consumer-class computers, there wasn't really a developed market for practical programming books. However, the manuals that came with software or OSes were quite well-written. There were a few magazines, too, like BYTE and Dr. Dobbs Journal, that published source code -- always the best way to learn! It helped,…

I can echo most of that as well (also almost 50). Books, magazines, and good old trial-n-error methods.

Re: What was it like to self-learn programming before Stack Overflow? (2016)

#280

Post by d0lph »

cm2187 wrote: post #247
throwanem wrote: post #235

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's full of people who can't be bothered to do even the most trivial investigation into their own damn bugs - the same trivial "I didn't configure it lol" and "I have no idea what I'm doing, nor interest in developing one, fix my thing for me plz" bugs that the site already has a dozen answers for. It stays that way because volunteer moderators don't want to wade through sewage all day. So it goes. The topic-specifi…

There are also many questions that I asked myself or googled and that I found shot down by overzealous SO moderators before someone could bring some element of response.

"Just google it"

>First google result

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