When I was 14, I walked uphill to school at 4 AM, in the snow, both ways, while carrying an IBM mainframe in my backpack!
Obligatory Monty Python: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DAtSw3daGoo
Show HN: I'm 14, I learned Objective-C, and this is my first iPhone game
131–140 of 191 posts
Re: Show HN: I'm 14, I learned Objective-C, and this is my first iPhone game
#132Earlier quoted context omitted.
Just for reference, a quick search reveals that MS VisualStudio can be purchased "from £502" (UK) and a new Mac mini starts at £499.
Eclipse and android SDK?
Of course. The comment was "I don't think that any IDE is so costly if you develop on any other phone".
That said, I'd happily pay £500 to not have to use Eclipse, but each to their own.
Re: Show HN: I'm 14, I learned Objective-C, and this is my first iPhone game
#133Earlier quoted context omitted.
I did what you mentioned (saying what I was doing when I was 14), and I can assure you I wasn't bragging(!) in the slightest bit (it didn't even occur to me) and I'm certain others are on the same boat. Most are reminiscing... How times have changed, our old, beloved tools, etc. You're just being a little bit pessimistic, I think! ;-)
It's hard not to feel a bit bitter when I read things like this. I had a one day introduction to programming in 6th grade (was 10 or 11), and I absolutely loved it. I was ridiculously driven to learn programming for a span of time, starting with basic (which was what we had used). I bought one of those terrible "Learn X in 30 Days!" books, dragged my dad off to get a copy of VB (based on what little research I did/un…
Like you, I hit wrong turns learning programming as a kid. Perhaps I got a bit farther than you, but I spent years writing in crippled languages like QuickBasic and Visual Basic, and bought poorly written, unhelpful programming books I couldn't get through. Everything I tried to write until my late teens was unfinished or a stupid toy.
What I lacked in my younger years, and it sounds like you did too, was resourcefulness. We weren't like this: http://www.paulgraham.com/relres.html The proper response to getting stuck with a dead-end IDE or book would've been to try like hell to find a different approach that works.
It would've been nice to have relentless resourcefulness as a teenager, but there's no changing the past. I'm trying to teach myself that quality now, and I'd suggest you practice it as well. In the end what you did when you were 15 just gets you some bragging rights, at best. You have the rest of your life to accomplish things that actually matter. And that's a much more important thing to know than JavaScript.
Re: Show HN: I'm 14, I learned Objective-C, and this is my first iPhone game
#134Earlier quoted context omitted.
When I was 14, you couldn't just go buy a "personal computer", as the minicomputer revolution was underway. So, I had to build my own computer... and I did. (I think I started at 13, and finished at 15). When I say, I built my computer, I mean I designed a PCB, laid it out, etched it, assembled it, then needed to build a display board to output to a TV, which was another several months of design, etc. And when I had…
That is remarkable, yet the thread somehow more and more resembles this nice Monty Python's sketch: http://youtu.be/Xe1a1wHxTyo
Monty Python ? In my days, we were happy watching 'At last the 1948 show !'
Re: Show HN: I'm 14, I learned Objective-C, and this is my first iPhone game
#135I was writing/learning HTML with FrontPage 2003 and Flash 5 (6? 7? I thankfully don't remember anymore) when I was 14 - while knowing almost no English (thus, not understanding even what the menu items and controls mean!) and without a manual or teacher and just clicking around and seeing what happens to the code :-( Hard, hard times it was. But I enjoyed it nevertheless. But still, I'm jealous of you. If you were to…
Congrats to the OP! Of course, there's always the birth lottery for most people reminiscing here. For people coming from the third world, this kind of a feat would be very rare to come by and won't be appreciated even if they do, as they are still tackling lower level problems. Heck, my parents don't even know I do on the computer. From where I come from, good grades are the best thing a kid could show to their paren…
I can feel what you say suhastech. But I don't think that is particular to developing countries. I am from Ecuador, and when I was maybe 9 or 10, was given my first Commodore 64. My dad taught me some BASIC and there I was making my first crappy programs. Of course they cared a lot about grades, like any parent.
Being born in a developing country screwed you up because technology took ages to get to you. Man, they still have 128K connections there...
Congrats to the OP by the way!
Re: Show HN: I'm 14, I learned Objective-C, and this is my first iPhone game
#136I was writing/learning HTML with FrontPage 2003 and Flash 5 (6? 7? I thankfully don't remember anymore) when I was 14 - while knowing almost no English (thus, not understanding even what the menu items and controls mean!) and without a manual or teacher and just clicking around and seeing what happens to the code :-( Hard, hard times it was. But I enjoyed it nevertheless. But still, I'm jealous of you. If you were to…
Heh, when I was 14, I published my first book: Game Programming for Teens, which eventually became an international best seller in 6 countries. I even got a monthly tv spot with Leo Laporte on what was then called Tech Tv. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wdh5dqbvrDE And still...none of my games have ever been as cool as OP's. Great work man
Nice one Maneesh! Way to make me feel inadequate.
First, I started programming at 15.
Second, the beard you had at 16! Back then, I would have killed for one of those.
Re: Show HN: I'm 14, I learned Objective-C, and this is my first iPhone game
#137Earlier quoted context omitted.
"You buy a Mac and you get a fantastic IDE and development platform for free, etc." Buy a Mac to hack on iPhone? I don't think that any IDE is so costly if you develop on any other phone.
Just for reference, a quick search reveals that MS VisualStudio can be purchased "from £502" (UK) and a new Mac mini starts at £499.
Or you use Visual Studio Express C# which is free.
Visual Studio (payed) combines all tools, all languages together and works with git, sourcesafe and many, many things more.
Or if you're a startup, you can receive all Windows stuff for free ;) (so you don't have to pay)
Re: Show HN: I'm 14, I learned Objective-C, and this is my first iPhone game
#138I started using Internet when I was 10 and started to dabble in HTML and then PHP3 and later 4. Earned a decent amount of money (for a kid), but then I just stopped because of workload in highschool and college.
Man, my skills got rusty I can barely write something these days. So, dont you ever stop doing that because returning to programming can be hard - your brain wont function at this ultraspeed it is functioning now.
Re: Show HN: I'm 14, I learned Objective-C, and this is my first iPhone game
#139I was writing/learning HTML with FrontPage 2003 and Flash 5 (6? 7? I thankfully don't remember anymore) when I was 14 - while knowing almost no English (thus, not understanding even what the menu items and controls mean!) and without a manual or teacher and just clicking around and seeing what happens to the code :-( Hard, hard times it was. But I enjoyed it nevertheless. But still, I'm jealous of you. If you were to…
Get off my lawn. I first learned HTML and JavaScript using Notepad in 96 when I was 14.
When I was 14 I had a mustache and was chasing girls. I was failing all my classes in school and my favorite past time was licking the bus window.
Re: Show HN: I'm 14, I learned Objective-C, and this is my first iPhone game
#140Every now and then here on HN someone is claiming that he's a teenager building an iPhone game. Is just a coincidence that the platform is always the same? MakeSpamWithUs :P