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Show HN: I spent 6 months building a C debugger as a 17-year-old

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Re: Show HN: I spent 6 months building a C debugger as a 17-year-old

#81

Post by codetrotter »

MuffinFlavored wrote: post #79

I always found this a bit weird. Why do you want everybody to know how old you are? It's kind of like... hey, I did this impressive thing, please give me credit, but also, just to give it some flare and kick it up a notch, I'm also super young making it that much more impressive! Why couldn't the title be > Show HN: I spent 6 months building a C debugger Why is your age relevant other than "wow factor"?

It’s very common for teenagers to do so. I did the same when I was their age. No reason to question why they do it, it’s just a thing teenagers do.

Re: Show HN: I spent 6 months building a C debugger as a 17-year-old

#82

Post by forgotpwd16 »

bluetomcat wrote: post #32

Looks especially clean, consistent and well-modularised, tackling a problem that requires non-trivial knowledge about binary formats and kernel APIs. Many "senior" programmers would struggle to build something like this even at a conceptual level. The antithesis of "kids these days" :-) Out of curiosity, how does a 17-year-old attain that level of knowledge? Books, peers, programming clubs, parents who are programmer…

>how does a 17-year-old attain that level of knowledge?

There's an excellent blog series linked at repo that guides you step-by-step.

Re: Show HN: I spent 6 months building a C debugger as a 17-year-old

#83

Post by skullone »

MuffinFlavored wrote: post #79

I always found this a bit weird. Why do you want everybody to know how old you are? It's kind of like... hey, I did this impressive thing, please give me credit, but also, just to give it some flare and kick it up a notch, I'm also super young making it that much more impressive! Why couldn't the title be > Show HN: I spent 6 months building a C debugger Why is your age relevant other than "wow factor"?

Because this is a highly unusual and complex thing for someone that young to accomplish? We should applaud them for their dedication and results. There's soooop much that can distract youth (or anyone of any age) from completing a pursuit like this. To the point I find your comment to be pedantic and ageist.

Re: Show HN: I spent 6 months building a C debugger as a 17-year-old

#84

Post by _8j50 »

MuffinFlavored wrote: post #79

I always found this a bit weird. Why do you want everybody to know how old you are? It's kind of like... hey, I did this impressive thing, please give me credit, but also, just to give it some flare and kick it up a notch, I'm also super young making it that much more impressive! Why couldn't the title be > Show HN: I spent 6 months building a C debugger Why is your age relevant other than "wow factor"?

I was about to make a similar comment. The project is impressive but a bit annoyed because he attached his age to it.

OP, you'll do cool stuff. Your age, location,sex, etc... has nothing to do with it. A 60yr old hobo and a 17yr old kid who know nothing about programming are at an equal footing, what each accomplishes is the result of how much time and effort they put into it (not neccesarily the same).

If you were like a 5 year old that'd be noteworthy but reading, writing, knowing how to use a computer and time is all that is needed for coding, unless you are out there creating or implementing sophisticated algorithms that require background mathematical knowledge.

I'd love to be corrected on this but there isn't anything you learn in school beyond like the 6th grade that is needed to succeed as a coder (not SWE, just programming and creating cool stuff).

I hope you let the coolness of your work speak for itself in the future OP.

Re: Show HN: I spent 6 months building a C debugger as a 17-year-old

#85

Post by _8j50 »

skullone wrote: post #83
MuffinFlavored wrote: post #79

I always found this a bit weird. Why do you want everybody to know how old you are? It's kind of like... hey, I did this impressive thing, please give me credit, but also, just to give it some flare and kick it up a notch, I'm also super young making it that much more impressive! Why couldn't the title be > Show HN: I spent 6 months building a C debugger Why is your age relevant other than "wow factor"?

Because this is a highly unusual and complex thing for someone that young to accomplish? We should applaud them for their dedication and results. There's soooop much that can distract youth (or anyone of any age) from completing a pursuit like this. To the point I find your comment to be pedantic and ageist.

Your expectation that age should have prevented OP from doing cool things is what is ageist and harmful to the success of youth. A 17 year old can revolutionize the world if they wanted to, lest you "adults" set such a low bar.

Re: Show HN: I spent 6 months building a C debugger as a 17-year-old

#86

Post by MuffinFlavored »

codetrotter wrote: post #81
MuffinFlavored wrote: post #79

I always found this a bit weird. Why do you want everybody to know how old you are? It's kind of like... hey, I did this impressive thing, please give me credit, but also, just to give it some flare and kick it up a notch, I'm also super young making it that much more impressive! Why couldn't the title be > Show HN: I spent 6 months building a C debugger Why is your age relevant other than "wow factor"?

It’s very common for teenagers to do so. I did the same when I was their age. No reason to question why they do it, it’s just a thing teenagers do.

> No reason to question why they do it,

No, then they'll never learn that it is received by "adults" as "unnecessarily extra-attention seeking".

Most people who like to share stuff are seeking validation one way or another (myself included).

It might be worthwhile for OP to step back and ask "why am I seeking validation from strangers online to find what I post impressive"?

Re: Show HN: I spent 6 months building a C debugger as a 17-year-old

#87

Post by _Algernon_ »

skullone wrote: post #83
MuffinFlavored wrote: post #79

I always found this a bit weird. Why do you want everybody to know how old you are? It's kind of like... hey, I did this impressive thing, please give me credit, but also, just to give it some flare and kick it up a notch, I'm also super young making it that much more impressive! Why couldn't the title be > Show HN: I spent 6 months building a C debugger Why is your age relevant other than "wow factor"?

Because this is a highly unusual and complex thing for someone that young to accomplish? We should applaud them for their dedication and results. There's soooop much that can distract youth (or anyone of any age) from completing a pursuit like this. To the point I find your comment to be pedantic and ageist.

This is a highly unusual and complex thing for anyone to accomplish. Why not let the achievement stand for itself?

Mentioning one's age screams insecurity (though to be fair, that is to be expected from teenagers). And as this comment chain illustrates it also partially derails the conversation to discussing his age, instead of his actual achievement.

Re: Show HN: I spent 6 months building a C debugger as a 17-year-old

#88

Post by flykespice »

manicennui wrote: post #54
D4ckard wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's mostly books and blogs: I like to read a lot. Also, your guess is correct, my dad is a computer scientist.

Reading books to increase your understanding puts you ahead of 90% of people who graduated from a CS program in the last 5-10 years from what I've seen. Several of my coworkers admitted to having never read a book on anything related to software engineering before and it shows.

To be honest these days articles on the web seem to be more efficient means to attain knowledge than a book, with less condensed words

Re: Show HN: I spent 6 months building a C debugger as a 17-year-old

#89

Post by cyberpunk »

Why do you put spaces between your function names and their arguments?

I find it quite jarring, as someone who's spent a good 18 years reading C code :}

    return lookup_breakpoint (dbg->breakpoints, get_pc (dbg->pid));
vs

    return lookup_breakpoint(dbg->breakpoints, get_pc(dbg->pid));
Edit: I tend to lean towards the 'bsd' style, if you have an open or freebsd system, try 'man style' and try their rules on for size.

Re: Show HN: I spent 6 months building a C debugger as a 17-year-old

#90

Post by valleyer »

cyberpunk wrote: post #89

Why do you put spaces between your function names and their arguments? I find it quite jarring, as someone who's spent a good 18 years reading C code :} return lookup_breakpoint (dbg->breakpoints, get_pc (dbg->pid)); vs return lookup_breakpoint(dbg->breakpoints, get_pc(dbg->pid)); Edit: I tend to lean towards the 'bsd' style, if you have an open or freebsd system, try 'man style' and try their rules on for size.

It's GNU style, which some people prefer.

https://www.gnu.org/prep/standards/standards.html#Syntactic-...

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