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

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

#171

Post by wayfarer2s » Wed, Jun 05, 2019, 2:02 PM UTC

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 graduating with my master's in CS now and still haven't been taught in class many of the things I had to figure out to make what I wanted to make.

Maybe the fact that you figured it out is an indication that it doesn't have to be taught in a CS curriculum. Most of the things that you mentioned have great documentation and tutorials outside of the classroom. The fact that so many people use them without them being taught in schools should be proof enough. I think the current situation makes sense -- Computer Science education should focus on teaching the fundamentals of algorithms, data structures, discrete math and how to think conceptually about problems without regard to implementation. By learning about data structures and the like, you indirectly learn how best to use memory, redis, MySQL, write servers and whatever else.

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

#172

Post by DEDLINE » Wed, Jun 05, 2019, 2:05 PM UTC

Reading this article + accompanying comments has me reminiscing on how awesome the Runescape community was back in the day. Scripting for SCAR, Moderating on Sythe.org (screen name Puto & Heist if anyone's out there) and trafficking massive amounts of internet goods via PayPal bring back some of my fondest memories on the internet.

I credit a good portion of my career success today to Runescape-centric experiences in CS, Business and Community Politics.

Thank you Andrew Gower + JaGeX team for creating a game much larger than itself.

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

#173

Post by Topgamer7 » Wed, Jun 05, 2019, 2:08 PM UTC

DEDLINE wrote: post #172

Reading this article + accompanying comments has me reminiscing on how awesome the Runescape community was back in the day. Scripting for SCAR, Moderating on Sythe.org (screen name Puto & Heist if anyone's out there) and trafficking massive amounts of internet goods via PayPal bring back some of my fondest memories on the internet. I credit a good portion of my career success today to Runescape-centric experiences in…

Runescape was great for anyone with parents who wouldn't let you install things. All you needed was a browser and java, super low bar for entry into the world of grinding.

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

#174

Post by wyldfire » Wed, Jun 05, 2019, 2:09 PM UTC

I'm assuming that these bots impact other gamers -- either through some negative consequence for human gamers or overall inflation of the MMO marketplace. If that's the case, then these bots seem terribly antisocial. OTOH it seems like youthful mischief is a rite of passage for software developers.

Regardless of how you started: good for you, and good luck with your career!

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

#175

Post by methyl » Wed, Jun 05, 2019, 2:14 PM UTC

rczhang wrote: post #40

Holy shit! This is literally my story too. Playing runescape and writing scripts for botting programs was literally how I learned to program. I ended up becoming a moderator on the RsBot forums and I remember Autofighter Pro when it came out. Super popular, and I didn't even realize it was made by someone the same age as me back then! Anyways, even though I didn't make any money (I gave my scripts away for free!), I…

Exactly the same story here. When I was 12 or 13 I tried to use bots in Tibia to make some money on selling gold, eventually leading me to the path of trying to write my own bots for different games. I had one of the first proof of concept bot for Path of Exile which I reverse engineered myself.

I think it's really a great way to get into programming, since it's SUPER rewarding to make the computer game work for you especially if you can sell some of this work afterwards. I know for some people it can be viewed as a shady practice, but I regret nothing ;)

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

#176

Post by someguydave » Wed, Jun 05, 2019, 2:18 PM UTC

Bakary wrote: post #161

teddyh wrote: post #111

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes. As criticizing and nitpicking which HN can be, it’s amazing how uncritical many people here are as long as something simply makes money . Doesn’t matter what it is – if it involves technology and makes money, then it gets nothing but heaps of praise from the HN crowd.

Whenever a post about privacy or freedom or some other unethical practice of a tech company surfaces, I always wonder if people are critical for direct reasons or because they can't have a piece of the pie. There are white-hat hackers out there and people driven by passion, but even Richard Stallman has enough income or social capital to lead a decent life. Being a paragon of virtue is a luxury predicated on meeting…

I notice a similar phenomenon with posts about Bitcoin; I always wonder if criticism is due to genuine belief or jealousy/regret in missing out on the first several orders-of-magnitude increase in value.

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

#177

Post by folkrav » Wed, Jun 05, 2019, 2:22 PM UTC

wyldfire wrote: post #174

I'm assuming that these bots impact other gamers -- either through some negative consequence for human gamers or overall inflation of the MMO marketplace. If that's the case, then these bots seem terribly antisocial. OTOH it seems like youthful mischief is a rite of passage for software developers. Regardless of how you started: good for you, and good luck with your career!

As much as I despise them, they basically are to be expected in any MMO these days. There isn't much to be done against them. These big third-party marketplaces using hundreds of bot accounts don't really care about getting banned - as long as they make enough sales, they can just buy new accounts ad vitam aeternam. I wouldn't be surprised if some of the more shady ones used stolen accounts.

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

#178

Post by folkrav » Wed, Jun 05, 2019, 2:25 PM UTC

Bakary wrote: post #160

ryanmercer wrote: post #151

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And similarly if a piece written by Escobar that had never been seen before surfaced and was published I imagine it would upvoted to the moon with a title like "How I made 30 billion dollars capturing 80% of a U.S. market"

Well the show Narcos is exactly that, glorifying Escobar to some extent.

Debatable. He was portrayed as a piece of shit and his death shown as a celebration.

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

#179

Post by lmpostor » Wed, Jun 05, 2019, 2:26 PM UTC

gjs278 wrote: post #49

tjbiddle wrote: post #41

The Runescape "blackmarket" was a fun world to play in! Like the author, I got into creating Runescape bots for a bit - but never works to sell them, just made my own for fun and (in-game) profit. As I dove deeper into the world, I came across people who would purchase a monthly VPS and install botting software on it. There were plenty of guides on how to go through - but no easy solutions for those who weren't techn…

how did they break the bots? I made a very basic runescape autoclicker at https://www.garyshood.com/rsclient/ I wonder if it gets banned in game now.

That's you? Well first of all, thanks!

But I think your auto-typer was really one of the only "allowed" 3rd party programs, and auto-clicking was never really enforced strictly.

When the bots got advanced, they pretty much had two methods via either injection or emulation of the entire game. So either they broke them through making a bunch of fundamental changes of ingame systems or the ability to connect to the servers.

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

#180

Post by folkrav » Wed, Jun 05, 2019, 2:26 PM UTC

sean-duffy wrote: post #106

voltagex_ wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you do this in any recent game you'll get banned. If you do this in any Valve game you'll get VAC banned.

Bots get you banned in Runescape too, which is what the OP article is about. What's your point?

Botting/cheat detection mechanisms have changed and evolved since RS.