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Ask HN: Why did you start programming?

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Re: Ask HN: Why did you start programming?

#14

Post by jchung »

I wanted to build something that people would love, so I thought I'd startup a business. I realized almost immediately that the grotesque "find a tech co-founder" mating dance wasn't for me, and decided to teach myself to code. Note to people looking for "tech co-founders" and refusing to teach themselves the basics: It wasn't all that freaking hard, people - Jeez.

Re: Ask HN: Why did you start programming?

#16

Post by Dnguyen »

A long time ago when Apple was trying to get into the schools, I was in a typing class. Being a shy kid, I didn't get a typewriter in the middle of the class. I got the Apple ][ in the corner to practice typing with. My sister was in high school and was learning typing as well. But her advance class had sequences like 3;4o2.14%. When she finished, it came out to be a picture of something. We now know them as ASCII art. Through my poking around, I learn that I can write for loops on the computer, so instead of typing 10 As, 10 Bs,...I wrote a loop to output the lines. A little more poking around I was outputting the sequences from my sister class and had pictures of things on my screen. That was cool! And the rest, as they say, was history.

Re: Ask HN: Why did you start programming?

#17

Post by Yxven »

I grew up playing playing the first MMORPGs where each level or skill took hours upon hours of repetitive button mashing. Hence, I learned to "macro," and my automation programs gradually grew more and more advanced.

Re: Ask HN: Why did you start programming?

#18

Post by nat »

I started out writing perl scripts to download porn. Clicking through to every page of various free galleries and manually saving things was hard work, so I figured there had to be some way to make the computer do that for me.

Still makes me proud just thinking about it.

Re: Ask HN: Why did you start programming?

#19

Post by jester5 »

Honestly, I just wanted to see what the hype was all about, then see if I could do it. I got a C++ book from a friend and initially looking at the book I ran the other direction. I was in my second year in college then. Then about my third yr in college I decided I would go for change my degree from CIS to B.S Software Engineering. Really to see if I could do it at first, I thought if I could this would streamline me into project management or something of that nature since I wanted to be in tech but not a dev.. Well after taking a few courses in C, javascript, I took Java and I sucked at it at first. Then something weird happen in my Advanced Java 2 class, I got code high one day.(I was working on a calculation project). This lead to a ever-ending search for that feeling over and over again... So I ended up taking the rest of my OO classes including VB and C++ and I decided code high was the coolest thing in the world.. So I decided I would pursue "code high" as career which is dev.. Now I code for a living and I am addicted to dev and sys stuff... I'm that which I said I would never be!! Honestly I just love building things and breaking things...and building them again.

Re: Ask HN: Why did you start programming?

#20

Post by keokilee »

I always wanted to do it, but my dad didn't want me to. He thought that engineers would only be needed to maintain software in the future (this was the mid to late 90's). I eventually took a 100 level CS course as a junior and loved programming ever since.
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