Like you, I always thought my chance to code had come and gone because Id only ever heard of people that started when they were young.I saw their 3D weather overlay when the storm was approaching and thought THAT IS IT.I was determined to learn and create that system - I started learning C, so that I could open and close files.I learnt socket programming so that I could download weather images from the NOAA.
It took me until I was 15 (I was totally self taught and it took me a while before I could learn all of the vector matrix math myself) but I ended up building it I made a program in C that downloaded the weather jpg, cleaned it up (removed noise, removed the NOAA logo, smoothed out the clouds) then generated a heightmap in OpenGL, and made a fly-over. I wish I still had the code, its sitting on my old computer at the Farm in New Zealand. This sort of attitude and environment needs to be passed on to future programmers, and preserved in the current ones. Kudos. Im guessing you would be around 28-30 years old, so Im a couple of years or more older. I wish I still had the code, its sitting on my old computer at the Farm in New Zealand: I bet a fair few people on HN would be interested in it as well, it sounds quite hardcore. Jurassic Park Computer System Professional Programmer AndI was 26 (which isnt terribly old, admittedly, but definitely past the little kid age) when I talked to a friend who was a professional programmer and decided huh, I like computers and solving problems. ![]() I hadnt programmed before then, though I was computer savvy, I guess. Took me about four years, but now I have a corporate job doing full stack.net work in CMVC, Ive done side projects in ruby, and I do some C, Haskell, and python on the side. Im also working my way through The Algorithm Design manual and have Concrete Mathematics to work through later on. I always got really discouraged because I constantly see and hear about people who started programming when they were five, or eight, or something like that, and Id think no way could I get into it that deeply, starting so late but thats just totally untrue. Im finally at a point where I think given the desire and time, I can learn whatever comp sci topic I want, so I get discouraged less. I think part of it has to do with notions of talent, and natural abilities. ![]() I dont remember learning most of the basic skills I have, so I forget that things can be difficult starting out. Every topic Ive started learning and stuck with in programming has pretty fully integrated itself into the core of how I think about the topic. One for-example would be immutable data structures as theyre implemented in Clojure, or functional programming in general. Jurassic Park Computer System How To Learn AsYou just have to try that much harder to catch up initially, but if you can teach yourself to keep learning now, youve got an extra skill a lot of people dont have, which is learning how to learn as an adult. I think its the most valuable skill I have right now. Im making a lot of assumptions in this post; sorry if any of them are way off base). I was always into computers when I was young but didnt really have access to any until high school. I always envied people that started learning how to code when they were kids, I still do.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |