The Power of Programming
Last Modified: 31/12/2020
Famous programmers share the joys of learning how to code.
- 1I was 13 when I first got access to a computer.
- 2My parents bought me a Macintosh in 1984 when I was eight years old.
- 3I was in the sixth grade.
- 4I learned to code in college.
- 5Freshman year first semester, Intro to Computer Science.
- 6I wrote a program that played tic-tac-toe.
- 7I think it was pretty humble beginnings.
- 8I think the first program I wrote asked things like, "What's your favorite color?"...
- 9...or, "How old are you?"
- 10I first learned how to make a green circle and a red square appear on the screen.
- 11The first time I actually had something come up and say, "Hello world"...
- 12...and I made a computer do that; it was just astonishing.
- 13Learning how to program didn't start off as...
- 14...wanting to learn all of computer science...
- 15...or trying to master this discipline or anything like that.
- 16It just started off because I wanted to do this one simple thing.
- 17I wanted to make something that was fun for myself and and my sisters.
- 18I wrote this little program, and then basically just added a little bit to it.
- 19And then when I needed to learn something new...
- 20...I looked it up either in a book or on the Internet...
- 21...and then added a little bit to it.
- 22It's really not unlike playing an instrument or something...
- 23...or you know, playing a sport.
- 24It starts out being very intimidating,...
- 25...but you kind of get the hang of it over time.
- 26Coding is something that can be learned...
- 27...and I know it can be intimidating, a lot of things are intimidating,...
- 28...but you know, what isn't?
- 29A lot of the coding that people do is actually fairly simple.
- 30It's more about the process of breaking down problems...
- 31...than coming up with complicated algorithms...
- 32...as people traditionally think about it.
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