Earlier quoted context omitted.
This story is incredibly common amongst my age group (40) in tech. What is the common story amongst those that are 30? 20?
I started when I was 18 in college. 35 now
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The Minecraft Creator Markus Persson Faces Life After Fame
71–80 of 109 posts
Re: The Minecraft Creator Markus Persson Faces Life After Fame
#72Earlier quoted context omitted.
This story is incredibly common amongst my age group (40) in tech. What is the common story amongst those that are 30? 20?
24. Even though we always had a computer at home, I never got into programming and spent most of my time playing games. (The learning curve was too steep, and besides, what could I possibly make that was better than the games I was playing?) Then when I got to college I majored in CS. Now I'm definitely interested in making games. :) In my opinion, the abundance of dynamic and interpreted languages, powerful tools, p…
But even you - a smart capable person who likes computers - didn't do so because you already had all the games you needed.
Those home computers? You load a game, or you start programming. Since loading a game often meant fiddling around with a tape cassette and cable, and a few minutes hoping it would load, it's easy to see why people decided to try to code themselves.
I know abstraction is a good thing. I know it's powerful and etc etc.
But there's something nice about being able to squirt data to an address, and know it's coming out the parallel port, and having a hokey resister-ladder DtoA converter hooked up to turn that data into music. Or to have a single instruction to draw a pixel.
Re: The Minecraft Creator Markus Persson Faces Life After Fame
#73> Computer magazines of the day would print strings of code on their back pages, which could be transcribed by the reader to create a playable game, and this code-by-numbers task gave Persson his first experience of what would later become his profession. “My sister would read the lines out to me and I would tap them into the computer,” he says. “After a while, I figured out that if you didn’t type out exactly what t…
This story is incredibly common amongst my age group (40) in tech. What is the common story amongst those that are 30? 20?
29. Started playing with JavaScript in 7th grade. Took C++ in 10th grade. Studied visual effects in college. Moved to web after college.
Re: The Minecraft Creator Markus Persson Faces Life After Fame
#74> Computer magazines of the day would print strings of code on their back pages, which could be transcribed by the reader to create a playable game, and this code-by-numbers task gave Persson his first experience of what would later become his profession. “My sister would read the lines out to me and I would tap them into the computer,” he says. “After a while, I figured out that if you didn’t type out exactly what t…
This story is incredibly common amongst my age group (40) in tech. What is the common story amongst those that are 30? 20?
I suppose I can't really speak for everybody but as a 20-something the story a lot of my friends and I had in common was programming our TI calculators. The language was simple (some might say...basic ba dum chh), it was easy to share programs with friends as text or via link and you had a built in packed audience of folks in classes that thought the things you figured out how to do were really cool. We started with simple school problem based programs then went on to more complicated things and then some went on to learn some c or assembly etc.
I think perhaps we might not be starting programming with computers directly all the time, but perhaps there will always be some object that younger folks will learn to program. Heck maybe the next kids will decide to program phones or connected home appliances or something.
Re: The Minecraft Creator Markus Persson Faces Life After Fame
#75> Computer magazines of the day would print strings of code on their back pages, which could be transcribed by the reader to create a playable game, and this code-by-numbers task gave Persson his first experience of what would later become his profession. “My sister would read the lines out to me and I would tap them into the computer,” he says. “After a while, I figured out that if you didn’t type out exactly what t…
This story is incredibly common amongst my age group (40) in tech. What is the common story amongst those that are 30? 20?
22. I started at 7 or 8 with Stagecraft Creator, which is a visual programming-ish thing. Then I moved onto to BASIC with Learn to Program BASIC. I have a friend who started with LTPB too.
Re: The Minecraft Creator Markus Persson Faces Life After Fame
#76> Computer magazines of the day would print strings of code on their back pages, which could be transcribed by the reader to create a playable game, and this code-by-numbers task gave Persson his first experience of what would later become his profession. “My sister would read the lines out to me and I would tap them into the computer,” he says. “After a while, I figured out that if you didn’t type out exactly what t…
> It's kind of weird to think that no-one gets their start like this anymore. I've gotten bug reports for Hackety Hack where people say "I can't copy and paste from the lessons. Can you fix that?" I reply (obviously at more length and warmth) "Working as intended."
I'm teaching my kids to read and write both english and code this way. Something magical happens when you "store and forward" that doesn't happen just with reading and writing drills.
My pet theory is that it has something to do with information compression in the brain, kind of like Huffman coding, except you keep the table for life.
Re: The Minecraft Creator Markus Persson Faces Life After Fame
#77He sounds pretty sad.
Re: The Minecraft Creator Markus Persson Faces Life After Fame
#78Compared to the other story of a $100M GOOG Exec, this is a story I really like, as a programmer.
Re: The Minecraft Creator Markus Persson Faces Life After Fame
#79Compared to the other story of a $100M GOOG Exec, this is a story I really like, as a programmer.
Apples and oranges.
Re: The Minecraft Creator Markus Persson Faces Life After Fame
#80Compared to the other story of a $100M GOOG Exec, this is a story I really like, as a programmer.
Apples and oranges.
How so? The GOOG exec story is about how to get rich by climbing the "Corporate Ladder", while Persson's way is to become successful by going indie and producing games people want. The interesting fact is that their wealth are comparable number-wise.