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Tell HN: My child's first program

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Re: Tell HN: My child's first program

#31

Post by neilv »

This is more sophisticated than my first line of code, but maybe reflects some universal underlying truth about how all of humanity is connected.

We kids finally got parents to buy a computer. They brought home a TI 99/4A, plugged it into the TV, kids all gathered around, got to the TI Basic prompt, everyone's full attention, but we didn't know what to do.

Someone typed something, got an error message, and a few more things.

One of us asked whether what we type "goes into the memory of the computer", wide-eyed fascinated.

Then we proceeded to type juvenile naughty things into this memory of the computer, which is the greatest thing.

Re: Tell HN: My child's first program

#32

Post by xyzelement »

I love the variable names. I definitely had the same naming conventions as a kid :)

Funny story. Sophomore year at college, I worked at a dev shop, and I was the first person to set up version control there (CVS... it was like year 2000.) The next day I reviewed changes that were merged and variables $tit and $ass were all over the place.

I assumed the guy who checked it in was just immature and met w him to "professionalize" him. But turns out these variables referred to Titles and Assignments (it was staffing software). LOL!

Re: Tell HN: My child's first program

#33

Post by mawise »

For those with even younger kids (they say ages 5-7), you might enjoy checking out Scratch Jr[1]. Building-block style programming with lots of examples for kids to get started on their own! (No affiliation, I just loved what happened when I gave it to my kid)

[1]: https://www.scratchjr.org/

Re: Tell HN: My child's first program

#34

Post by belthesar »

xyzelement wrote: post #32

I love the variable names. I definitely had the same naming conventions as a kid :) Funny story. Sophomore year at college, I worked at a dev shop, and I was the first person to set up version control there (CVS... it was like year 2000.) The next day I reviewed changes that were merged and variables $tit and $ass were all over the place. I assumed the guy who checked it in was just immature and met w him to "profess…

As a kid? When writing stupid scripts, I frequently use `fart` as a variable name to this day.

I'm a staunch supporter of naming variables intentionally in software that lives, but I'm definitely not above doing a `fart=True; while fart: ...` in temporary repl work.

Maybe I'm just eternally 10 years old, haha.

Re: Tell HN: My child's first program

#35

Post by rootusrootus »

belthesar wrote: post #34
xyzelement wrote: post #32

I love the variable names. I definitely had the same naming conventions as a kid :) Funny story. Sophomore year at college, I worked at a dev shop, and I was the first person to set up version control there (CVS... it was like year 2000.) The next day I reviewed changes that were merged and variables $tit and $ass were all over the place. I assumed the guy who checked it in was just immature and met w him to "profess…

As a kid? When writing stupid scripts, I frequently use `fart` as a variable name to this day. I'm a staunch supporter of naming variables intentionally in software that lives, but I'm definitely not above doing a `fart=True; while fart: ...` in temporary repl work. Maybe I'm just eternally 10 years old, haha.

Heck, when I write throwaway scripts most of my variables are different slang terms for feces. Sure, I use foo, bar, baz, bing sometimes too. But I never grew up either. At some point I decided that was a Good Thing, and I have no further plans to mature.

Re: Tell HN: My child's first program

#36

Post by dhosek »

The first program I ever wrote was in AppleSoft BASIC. It would pick a random location on the screen and print MILK in inverse text at that location. And then GOTO 10. Anyone else remember their first program?

Re: Tell HN: My child's first program

#37

Post by rumpope »

My son took a coding class in elementary school (MIT scratch), and he came in one day and told his teacher that his Dad was a "pro programmer" and had helped him. The program was a pigeon farting on a man's head. The teacher asked what Dad had helped with, and he said "he recorded the fart sound".

Re: Tell HN: My child's first program

#38

Post by coldpie »

fredley wrote: post #27
tricky wrote: post #21

Hilarious! After a few of those, I taught my son how to open the javascript console and "hack" his favorite cookie clicker. He was so excited to show his friends but the school-provided chromebooks are really locked down. I was disappointed, thinking that would be the end of it, but his whole class has been trying to find ways around the blocks and filters ever since. They've found some clever workarounds and a lot o…

Poorly implemented device lockdowns by my school were the start of my interest in understanding and manipulating systems, long may they last!

Yuuup. My favorite instance in I think 9th grade was opening the computer case while the teacher was out so I could pop out the CMOS battery to disable the BIOS password, boot a live disk without the disk protection software (Deep Freeze), edit the Win95 boot logo screen[1] to put a little smiley face in the corner, and then put it all back together (sans BIOS password, since I never knew what it was originally!). No one ever mentioned it, but I'd see my little smiley every time that PC booted. Later, I spent 13 years working in reverse-engeering-related software :)

[1] https://www.dslreports.com/faq/3880

Re: Tell HN: My child's first program

#40

Post by incanus77 »

dhosek wrote: post #36

The first program I ever wrote was in AppleSoft BASIC. It would pick a random location on the screen and print MILK in inverse text at that location. And then GOTO 10. Anyone else remember their first program?

Wasn’t quite my first, but one of the earliest I recall on a TI-99/4A was programming the Jeopardy! theme song with frequencies and durations in CALL SOUND statements.
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