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How I Made $200k When I Was 16 Years Old Through Coding (2018)

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Re: How I Made $200k When I Was 16 Years Old Through Coding (2018)

#51

Post by robertely »

dzhiurgis wrote: post #48

I don’t know why, but cheating in Runescape is hardest drug ever. I’ve got banned in 2005, never touched gaming after that. Anyone remember SCAR?

SCAR was I think the first programming I did. It was very good software, really made it enjoyable. So much so that SCAR eventually _became_ the game.

Every morning before school and every afternoon when I got home I would check on my bot to see it either:

- Murdering chickens/Mining/Cutting wood

- Stuck on a tree

- Stock on the log in screen

I just remember how carefully i had to debug those scar scripts. A bug could waste night of botting, or worse do something suspicious and get your account locked.

I worry that kids growing up today have fewer opportunities like this.

Re: How I Made $200k When I Was 16 Years Old Through Coding (2018)

#52

Post by willvarfar »

Ah, its nice to reminicse!

Back in my day, games weren't online, and I didn't really have the hardware to do them justice, nor the money to buy good hardware or games either. I remember playing Wolfenstein 3D from a cover-disk in a tiny postage-stamp sized window. At school we used to pass around cover-disks because we couldn't all afford to buy every mag.

Anyway, I kind of started programming from the get-go, and for a long time, programming _was_ my game. By the time I got to uni I found myself writing modding tools and editors for various games that my friends played or wanted to make mods for.

By then I had somehow found myself in a 'rogue' part of a very big company. I was surrounded by contractors making £60/hour so I started my own contracting company and was soon making way more money than I've ever made since.

Once I graduated I went into normal being-an-employee mode, and things have been getting financially worse ever since.

So its interesting, scary and confusing to read this guy's account of how he dropped out of school and has set up a stream of companies to sell his small products. Interesting, obviously. Scary, because I fear that some young people are reading it and thinking "I don't need school! I can make money!". Its the same way I get all scared when my daughters tell me how much youtubers apparently make. And confusing, because I can't spot the value in any of the products and stuff he has created recently. I guess I really don't get this whole social online world?! Perhaps I went in entirely the wrong direction all those years ago when I went and got a normal job?

Good luck to him!

Not sure what advice I'd give to a young kid now, though. To be honest, I'm not very keen on being an employee. But would you tell a kid to drop out of school and try and get funding for an app they sell to colleges etc?

Re: How I Made $200k When I Was 16 Years Old Through Coding (2018)

#54

Post by gjs278 »

xwdv wrote: post #15
fbi-director wrote: post #2

A nice story of how a young boy's enthusiasm and unhindered spirit got in the right place at the right time. I feel happy for him and his family to stumble upon this path in life - and then smashing it an building his own gold road! Alas, I also feel sad at the same time, for myself not having that opportunity and having wasted my programming skills all together after I went to university,due to outside pressures and…

If it’s any comfort the alternative doesn’t turn out much better. Most of my life I looked down on prurient interests and instead chose to master my profession, convinced it had to be the smart choice. Now I find myself on the wrong side of 30 with a collection of useless money and assets slowly coming to accept that I’ll never have that ideal lifelong relationship with someone that matters. Soon I’ll have more years…

lol. go join a kickball or dodgeball league. you’ll be fine.

Re: How I Made $200k When I Was 16 Years Old Through Coding (2018)

#55

Post by sitkack »

wilsonrocks wrote: post #45
rococode wrote: post #14

Games with strong user-hosted server ecosystems seem to be a great way for kids to start gaining serious coding experience. I went a similar path with Minecraft servers (and also first started with Runescape, both are in Java) - making a server in highschool and grossing ~$150k in a year and a half. Before making a server, I thought coding was cool, but had never done much beyond running some basic programs. Making a…

Hosting a long term game of freeciv was essentially the catalyst for me transitioning from math teacher/trade union official to web developer, via making some web apps For the players involved.

I wish people were transition _to_ math teachers.

I understand things change, income is different between jobs. I am not passing judgement on the fact that you transitioned away. It would be awesome if teachers were paid as well as a web dev.

Re: How I Made $200k When I Was 16 Years Old Through Coding (2018)

#56

Post by isostatic »

willvarfar wrote: post #52

Ah, its nice to reminicse! Back in my day, games weren't online, and I didn't really have the hardware to do them justice, nor the money to buy good hardware or games either. I remember playing Wolfenstein 3D from a cover-disk in a tiny postage-stamp sized window. At school we used to pass around cover-disks because we couldn't all afford to buy every mag. Anyway, I kind of started programming from the get-go, and fo…

Some people make it as you tubers. Some make it in professional sports, some make it in Hollywood.

Most don’t. It’s nothing new.

Re: How I Made $200k When I Was 16 Years Old Through Coding (2018)

#57

Post by Chromozon »

dzhiurgis wrote: post #48

I don’t know why, but cheating in Runescape is hardest drug ever. I’ve got banned in 2005, never touched gaming after that. Anyone remember SCAR?

For those that don't know, SCAR is a scripting IDE. It was originally created for Runescape, but it can easily be used for many other games or automated tasks. Scripts are written in the Pascal programming language (super old school!). The IDE provides the ability to focus on windows, track screen coordinates, and get pixel color values. There is a large standard library of functions- MoveMouse(), ClickMouse(), FindBitmap(), FindColor(), TypeKeys('asdf')- basically all the building blocks necessary to emulate human input. There are probably better scripting IDEs out there nowadays, but back then, this was one of the best.

Re: How I Made $200k When I Was 16 Years Old Through Coding (2018)

#58

Post by isoskeles »

sitkack wrote: post #55
wilsonrocks wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Hosting a long term game of freeciv was essentially the catalyst for me transitioning from math teacher/trade union official to web developer, via making some web apps For the players involved.

I wish people were transition _to_ math teachers. I understand things change, income is different between jobs. I am not passing judgement on the fact that you transitioned away. It would be awesome if teachers were paid as well as a web dev.

I'd consider it if I didn't need a four-year degree.

Re: How I Made $200k When I Was 16 Years Old Through Coding (2018)

#59

Post by conjectures »

rococode wrote: post #14

Games with strong user-hosted server ecosystems seem to be a great way for kids to start gaining serious coding experience. I went a similar path with Minecraft servers (and also first started with Runescape, both are in Java) - making a server in highschool and grossing ~$150k in a year and a half. Before making a server, I thought coding was cool, but had never done much beyond running some basic programs. Making a…

I'm going to try and remember this tip for when my kid gets older!
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