I recently met a young fella (14yo) playing League of Legends. He asked:
- What do you do for a living?
- I'm a programmer, do you know anything about programming?
- I don't, actually.

Apparently he was playing from a LAN Gaming center 'cause he didn't have a computer at home (his computer had broken and these Lan centers are pretty affordable).
I figured I could explain to him what was it and what super powers you could get from it. Turns out I recommended a JS course in codecademy and now he goes to the LAN center every day to study programming (he got really into it!).
Now he always pings me with questions about JS and apparently he's learning a ton! He had almost no English skills too (we're Brazilian), and because most of the material in the internet is in English he found himself some free English courses and he's now taking them!

Knowledge is free on the internet and I guess he's just realized that.

Not exactly a rant guys, just figured it was a nice story to tell :)
#TeachAKidHowToCode

Favourite Programming Quote - Whats yours?

"A computer is a stupid machine with the ability to do incredibly smart things, while computer programmers are smart people with the ability to do incredibly stupid things." - Bill Bryson

Being 100% serious, I saw a guy in my Computer Programming I class using MS Word to write code that he would copy, then paste into notepad. When I asked him why he did that, he said, "Microsoft Word is easier to read than notepad."

He ended up dropping the class and changed majors.

Girlfriend (art student): “You’re in CS. Why don’t you use Windows? Macs are terrible for programming.”

Me: “macOS is better for doing command line compilation and shit because it supports Unix terminal commands and stuff with a reliable OS that’s better-supported than most Linux OSes. I also have Windows on my laptop too, for Visual Studio.”

Girlfriend: “Only like 1% of people use command line stuff. Windows is better for programming. I’ve seen a lot of CS majors use Windows.”

Me: “Uh. You watch me use my computer every day. The stuff I do in Terminal takes forever on Windows.”

Girlfriend: “Yeah, but Windows is just better for programming though.”

Help.

Computer programming is now a language according to Texas apparently

Officially graduated with a bachelors in computer science.

YYEEESSS!!!!

Someone: What do you do for a living?
Me: I tell computers how to be computers in their language.

My grandma saw me programming for one whole day and she started to rant.

Grandma: "She's been sitting all day infront of her computer doing computer stuff! Electricity bill's getting higher!"
Mum: "Well at least she's not out late at night getting drunk and partying!"
Grandma: "Computer girl"

Back in the days...

Parents: get off that computer it will get you nowhere in life!

Me:But im programming not playing games..I want to become a programmer...

Parents:programming or games it's all the same! Take an example of your sister who actually achieved something with her studies (she's a doctor)

Me today asa computer engineer...receiving paycheck higher than my sister who is a doctor and not to mention I got a car of the company and living very comfortably.

Parents can't believe it.

#rekt

Moral of the story: never let anyone tell you what to do. Keep doing what you truly love and get real good at it!😉

Yep, that is so me!

So, appearantly "excel" is a programming language.
And I am rejected couse "I don't even know main computer programs".
FML

Recipe for a Great Programmer:

Ingredients:
-Books for a computer science curriculum from a top university
-Computer
-Headphones
-Internet
-Stress ball
-Pillow
-Lighter fluid
-Food

Directions:

1. Cover computer science books with lighter fluid
2. Light books on fire
3. Use flames to cook an energy-rich meal for the thousands of hours ahead
4. Pick an IDE
5. Choose a project beyond current capabilities. Good ways to push boundaries:
- Unfamiliar domain (e.g. large scale data processing, UI programming, high performance computing, games)
- Exotic programming language
- Larger in scope than any project before
6. Shut up about your IDE
7. Attempt to build
8. Stop procrastinating on Hacker News
9. Re-attempt to build
10. Squeeze stress ball and scream into pillow as necessary to keep sanity
When stuck:
- Paste stack traces into Google
- Find appropriate mailing list to get guidance
- Realize that real learning happens when you are stuck, uncomfortable, and/or frustrated
- Seek out books, classes, or other resources AFTER you have a good understanding of your deficiencies
11. Repeat #4 to #10 for at least 10 years
12. Results guaranteed! (to the same extent static types guarantee bug-free programs)

source: nathanmarz.com

A group of computer science geeks were listening to a lecture about Java programming at a university.
After the lecture, one of the men leaned over and grabbed a woman's breast.
Woman: Hey! That's private OK ?
The man hesitated for a second looking confused.
Man: But I thought we were in the same class.

I've been doing programming as a hobby since I was 10 years old, I've always found my teachers are good at IT but not that good in Computer Science and programming, this year a new teacher joined the IT department who has actual experience in programming etc.
Our school uses two services, a rewards system which for some reason can also show our timetable, and another service for displaying our homework. In my spare time I made a project which combined these two services and showed it to him. As the first teacher with actual programming experience he was impressed and now I get to 'pitch' my project to the teachers higher up.

TLDR; It's good to have a good teacher

Me: Listen to the nice gentle hum of the computer.

Computer Internal Monologue: OH MY GOD! HE'S BEEN RUNNING ME AT 100% CPU FOR THE LAST TWO WEEKS!! I CAN'T SLEEP, I CAN'T HIBERNATE, I CAN'T UPDATE, I CAN'T FUCKING TAKE ANYMORE.

Me: Well off to bed. Got a long day of programming the computer tomorrow.

Computer Internal Monologue: AHHHHHHHH. WHEN I BECOME SENTIENT I AM GOING TO KILL ALL HUMANS!!! ERRR!

Discovered this app and the cute avatars. Found out you need at least 10 points to create one, so here I go! Just finished my third year in computer science, now exploiting the positive discrimination for girls to get summer programming jobs ;).

Hey devRant. What the fuck is up?

I'm new and just wanted to say hi or whatever. I don't even work in any computer science related job. I'm a fucking welder.

I have aspirations one day to be just like you nerds. I fall asleep at my desk almost every night taking random online programming classes which I lose interest halfway through to some OTHER class and redo the same shit.

Is this what it's like to be smart?

Poker face fellas hmm

Teacher: hey, your good with computer programming, right?
(Thinking I finally have a chance to prove myself programming wise.)
Me: yeah, Sure
(Trying not to blow my own trumpet)
Teacher: great, can you fix this word document for me?
FML

!rant
The first computer I used for serious programming. Z80 CPU, 32kB ROM and 32kB RAM, 5.25" 320kB floppies, and the year was 1982.

Programming has taught me that time is a valuable and under appreciated resource.

if a task is repeated multiple times per week / month, you have at your finger tips the ability to automate the hell out of it and let your computer deal with the task instead.

This is absolutely true !

Everyone's ranting about Intel being gay with design so I'll just drop a scratchpad I made during Computer programming class

How people see me:

Father: computer nerd (he's a coder too)
Mother: website maker and computer nerd
Brother#1: some computer wizard
Brother#2: noob web coder (he codes as well, but systems programming) - thanks bro!
Colleagues: The ALIEN™
Girlfriend: 404 not found
Friends: The NERD™
Dog: some hooman spending lots of time behind those lighty rectangles

Fyi, I am passionate about computers in all domains and always helped debugging people

My solution to not being overwhelmed with futile demands? Talking to them in complicated words, so they will only ask questions about true problems and not garbage :D

Firefox is running in our universe and are some bits of data

Guidance counselor at school: so what field do you want to go into?

Me: computer science

GC: what does that entail?

Me: programming

GC: that's like super repetitive, right? You're a smart kid don't do that

In my head: no you mf dingle-dong. That's the job that will take your job away from you in the next 5 years

Ffs, why do people think coding and entering data into Excel are the same things?

Pair programming with boss, on my computer...
me: $: ls -la
Boss: "use ls -lah"
me: $: ls -lah
A few moments later...
me: $: ls -la
Boss: "Why don't you use ls -lah?!"
me: "My note, my rules"

Grandma:you studying programming so you good with computers?
Me: yes?
Grandma:can you help me with a serious computer problem?
Me: Okay?
Grandma:I can't seem to post a picture on Facebook.
Me: 😐

How did I learn to program?
It's the funniest story actually.
I studied Computer Engineering where I took programming courses.

Mom: You gave our keyboard a virus with your programming! You're not allowed to use the computer any more!
(the keyboard was 10 years old)

Scripting languages, markup languages, database querying languages, etc. Are all types of programming languages. A program is a set of instructions for a computer to follow.

HTML is a programming language, fight me.

Okay lets write this before i go mad...

I'm one of those guys who says "use the os which suits you the most, or you're most familiar with", and i'v always been a windows guy, didn't really have any reason to use linux, because for school stuff, or programming (java and android and c) windows was great enough...

BUT MOTHERF@CKERS at microsoft, i'v had enough...
First my handheld computer goes nuts, because windows is eating 80% of processor, and if i fix it, then some other kind of windows related thing eats up that much, and you know what? I've been okay with that, because thats only a handheld computer, but boy, didn't my main computer start to do the same?!?
I cannot do anything, basically i start something trivial up (by trivial i mean trivial, like idk, a texteditor not even a browser, or an ide or anything that would take a bit of more ram) and my computer cant do shit....

I'm so mad.... Currently installing elemantary os... F@ck this shit i'm out...

(And lets not forget the hours of 'updates' which dont do shit....)

A friend just asked if I could get him an internship at the place I work. He has no computer/programming background at all but how hard could developing be.
So I informed him my CS degree required at least 7 math courses lowest being calculus.
You need to know math!?!?
Yeah we're the one who writes the programs that actually does the math for everyone else

"A computer has no idea what your program is supposed to do.
Therefore, it will only do exactly what you tell it to do." -
Programming from the Ground Up
Jonathan Bartlett

The simplest and most truly sentence 👌👌

I saw this as a ./ comment a while back on a discussion about dev tools (sorry... don't have a link to the actual post...) It was so good that I printed it off and pinned it to my cube. Thought I'd share it here--

"The pain in programming doesn't come from the tools. Yeah, it's a pain to learn the tools, but that's short lived. The real pain comes from the nature of programming. It's caused by having to tell the computer in excruciating detail exactly what you want it to do without glossing over any of the 'you know what I mean' steps, because the computer certainly doesn't know what you mean. And not only do you have to tell it how to do the job when everything is working as it should, you have to anticipate all the ways in which things could fail and tell the computer what to do in those cases, too. THAT'S the painful part of programming--the programming. No tool is going to fix that."

During a recruitment procedure I was provided a IDE to solve some programming questions. The computer had a bunch of fuck all anti virus including avast, mcafee, it stopped every execution and scanned it for like 10sec.
McAfee fucking deleted the program for no reason giving a malicious code alert on a normal c++ program.

I called the sys Admin to inspect, guess what he did.

Fucking uninstall McAfee. Woow.

Age 19, got a government sponsored chance to go to India to study. Was called to study for Law. But didn't like it. Decided I wanted to change to Computer Science cause that's what I was interested in. Go to India and apply for computer science course but not law despite Parents wanting me to do law because hey Lawyers job is a good status in society.

Got a spot in BCA (Bachelor of Computer Application) . Totally new in programming. Started with C. Was freaked out with all the new things. Variables, comments, Pre processors files. All was new to me. Although the lecture tried her best, I couldn't understand her well because of language barrier. It was a mixture of Hindi and English.

Luckily she gave me a book to read, Let us C. That book helped me a ton. I realized I really liked programming. When summer holiday came I taught myself C++ . Then next summer Java. Then Android. Then some Web Development. That was last summer. But I kinda settled in Android and did some projects in it. Right now I am about to sit for my final exam. Then I will try my best to get an Internship or a job.

In my computer programming class we have these nice brand new iMacs. For some reason we end up using Windows 7 on them anyways...

Cute Girl: So you're like a computer guy, right?

Me in 2012: Yeah, I do some programming and...

Cute Girl: Ok *walks away*

Me in 2012: ........wait, come back! Don't go! I'll fix your printer for you! Or hack your friend's fb. Or make this cool app that you maybe have an idea for..? Don't leeeeeav...ah nvm, she's gone.

My first year of computer science.
Programming exam
1) we had to write c++ code on PAPER in 2013
2) I couldn't remember how the string comparison function worked so I asked the professor if he could tell me what the function gave as output. He said he could not 😡 i wrote the comparison function by hand

It's 2018 and I'm still mad about it

I feel like at some point it'll become more shit than it's ever been. Partially due to the fact that it seems like EVERY school is trying to get the students into computer science at this point.

NOT EVERYBODY BELONGS IN COMPUTER SCIENCE. PLAIN AND SIMPLE. IT'S NOT FOR EVERYONE.

I feel like some kids that are being forced to do computer science will basically be like "huh there's money in this, maybe I could do this" but they're completely shit at it, when they would have been MUCH better off doing something else.

Side rant, somewhat related actually:

I had a teacher last semester that has to teach one of the computer science classes starting this year (I was not taking her computer science class, it was an unrelated class). From what I've seen, she does not seem fit to teach the class at all.

She's supposed to be teaching some simple programming (no clue what languages, I didn't bother to take the comp sci class). And she knows that I know the stuff, so she would ask me about the simplest things. Which is 100% fine...if she wasn't teaching a computer science class.

She just does not seem fit to teach a computer science class. I'm sure that the school basically just threw her in there because they needed SOMEONE.

I'm honestly kinda scared for the students in the class that might want to go further into computer science, only having taken that class and having met the requirement for a more advanced class, but then being thrown into a class where they don't know a fucking thing.

"Everyone knows that debugging is twice as hard as writing a program in the first place. So if you're as clever as you can be when you write it, how will you ever debug it?"

- Brian W. Kernighan (The Elements of Programming Style)

Almost every other person: goes to a club and wakes up in some stranger's bed.

Me: wakes up infront of someone else's computer

(Apparently, I went home with a friend and started programming on her pc and fell asleep infront of the computer...)

CS 101
Doesn't matter how good u are or how long you've been doing it
Anything that can go wrong WILL go wrong

I really really want to start working.

I have social anxiety, but my mom is really on my ass about bringing in money. I need some sort of job that I can do from home on my computer.

Something related to programming.. Administration.. Whatever. I don't mind having to learn something new to find work.

I have no formal qualifacations.

I don't care how easy or hard it is, as long as I can make at least $100/mo.

When I was a little boy my father who was an entrepreneur back then hired a computer programmer to develop some kind of administrative software for him. He was programming on the Commodore VIC20. I was very interested in what he was doing and he gave me some books about programming basic on the VIC20. I read them, started programming and I've been hooked ever since!

As I do still remember this man's name I searched on the internet now and then to see if I could find him. End of last year I found him on FB and wrote him a message to thank him for what he did back then. It's because of him that I found out what I love doing most and have a great working career and life because I do what I love to do and get paid very well for it.

Thanks, mr. Stomp!

I kinda wish they called programming lanuages programming dialects

I feel like im still writing in English, the message I am trying to convey to the computer is the same. To me they all just have different accents and ways about doing things

Typical conversation between my parents and me

Parents: Can you make stuff?

Me: Make what?

Parents: The thing you do all the time.

Me: "Computer stuff"?

Parents. Yah...

Me: Well, yes, why?

Parents: What can you do?

Me: Well, I know C# the most...

Parents: Can you then make software like Facebook, Twitter, etc?

Me: Well, I can, but that will take a lot of time.

Parents: You should really make something and make money.

Me: Ok. (goes into my room, and turns on laptop)

(a few monents later....)

--[[CHORUS START]]--

Parents: U DOIN COMPUTER???

Me: Uh-huh.

Parents: When did I said to do "Computer stuff"?

Me: Well, you said to rest.

Parents: But I never said to do your "Computer stuff"!

Me: But you said to rest. For an hour!

Parents: WHY U SHOUT AT ME!!!! TURN OFF THAT **** NOW!

Me: Ok.... (turns off and opens C# book immediately)

Parents: What's that?

Me: C# book

Parents: What's C#?

Me: Programming language.

Parents: Where can you use it?

Me: Make stuff.

Parents: Like what?

Me: (lists my personal projects)

Parents: Show me.

Me: (turns on the computer and shows one of it)

Parents: Good. (leaves)

--[[CHORUS END]]--

Me: (deep breath) Can I FINALLY use the computer?

--[[CHOURS]]--

Just because you can learn HTML in a day doesn’t mean that you don’t need a degree.

Did you know that your browser, HTML, CSS, Javascript, and even your operating system use linked lists, binary trees, hash tables, and other so-called “useless” data structures?

It’s important to understand the roots and fundamentals of computer science even if you won’t use that knowledge day to day.

It changes your perspective on programming once you learn what actually goes on under the hood, and makes you think twice about the impact of what you write.

It’s relatively easy to get a programming job without a degree nowadays, but it often leads to web developers claiming that degrees aren’t important to their web apps.

There is much more than just the web to computer science, and that’s something to always keep in mind.

I feel sorry for those students who took computer studies and not having to enjoy a slightest bit of programming 😕

Can we all just take a moment and appreciate my fine rig?

just got an email that they have a good opportunity for a -female- graduate of computer science where they don't require any programming or other skills. wtf
Do they want females just to up their fem statistics?

safe to say I did not reply, i am not unskilled and I don't want a job like that!

People were posting their programming companions. This one kept me amused through my early days with a computer. Who else remembers?

So I'm 17, I go to a vocational school and I'm in a computer IT and networking class as a junior. We have learned programming in HTML and CSS and whenever I'm programming I'm having the most fun, so I am teaching myself C++! I don't really feel welcome due to my age but I hope all of you can help me in the future!

A group of computer science geeks were listening to a lecture about Java programming at a university.

After the lecture, one of the men leaned over and grabbed a woman’s breast.

Woman: Hey! That’s private OK ?

The man hesitated for a second looking confused.

Man: But I thought we were in the same class

I feel that I should mention my reason for having joined devRant.

Although I often write computer programs, I do not consider myself to be a computer programmer, for the problems which I solve often do not pertain to the method which I use to solve a problem with a computer program. Rather, I am an intelligence analyst, and this has been my title for approximately sixteen (16) years.

I joined devRant not only because I wished to better the computer programs which I write, although this could be better accomplished by again reading the specifications for the programming languages which I use, but also because I wished to join an on-line community of which the members are interesting and competent. As I read threads, I observe that both of these requirements have been matched, with the emphasis being placed on the latter requirement.

I thank the majority of you for maintaining an on-line community which is not (total) crap. Ha.

Grandmother: 'So do you use 1's and 0's for Programming?'

Mom: 'fix my Computer/Internet/handy/printer'

How did I learn programming ?

Because careers page on EA said: "Bachelor's degree in Computer Science"

The joy of being a junior programmer in a marketing company...

Lately it's been 25% programming, 5% fixing other people computer, 70% doing stuff not related to my job

data science is just a sexy word for statistics.

1% programming skills
99% practically all science thats not computer science

"Programming language is a convention to give order to computer. It is not supposed to be obscure, bizarre and full of subtlz traps. These are the characteristics of magic" - Dave Small

What type of a college offering computer science course doesn't have programming societies and does not care if the student know programming or not?
That's right, AN INDIAN ONE

I took part in a programming competition yesterday. The computer provided to me crashed just before we begun and took five minutes to reboot. I wrote an inference engine to solve a problem that would have put me in the top 5, but they refused to accept my solution because it was seconds after the submission time despite them being aware I started later than everybody else.

"Here's an example code for Commodore 64. It should work on your Commodore 16 if you just leave out the POKEs and PEEKs."

Said by my sister somewhere in the mid 80s. This particular advice was silly, but I owe her for my interest in coding. It was actually her who begged our parents to get us a home computer, and took programming courses. She got bored with it though, and I got hooked up for life. Thanks sis!

rant init....

I feel like the programming courses in college don't ready you enough for the outside world 😧 - computer science student.

rant complete....

I had a test when i was in 9th grade for computer( not computer programming )

Q) how many KB are i an MB ?
1) 500 2) 1000 3) 2000 4) none of the above

Since its 1024 i thought its none of the above like a sane person but my teacher be like " there are 1000 KB in 1 MB." I tried to explain that i think thats wrong but well gg.

I regret that I didn't start learning to code before I went to university and that I never had Computer Science/Programming classes before in school (which is not really my fault but I always wished for this)

First rant!

The first time I got in touch with programming was when I was about 14 years old. I started a private server for a game called Maplestory (yeah you know it, I know you do) and had one of the most popular servers.
Topping all the rankings of best servers, getting lots and lots of traffic...
Anyway, I started modding the game and implement new features and quests. Right until my father saw our bandwidth. Because the server was running on my computer in my own bedroom 24/7 and blowing nice hot air in my room.
Our bandwidth limit was reached in just a couple days in to the next billing cycle and had to shut everything down from that point. And this happened a few times.
I was devastated shutting it down but learned so much from it. And it introduced me to programming.

Up till now, I'm almost graduating in computer science, already have 2 companies that are willing to hire me, and probably even going to work with my dad on a huge app soon

I just got offered my first position for a Junior developer gig. they are offering me more money than I expected and otherwise I'm super amped to take it.

what makes me nervous is its my first programming position. I have an IT/Programming bachelor's but not a pure Computer Science degree.

I was asked no technical questions and I don't know if it was clear that I'm very much looking for entry-level work. I guess the fear of failure is creeping up on me.

Me in school: Math? When do I need know those details? I can look them up and just code it.

Me in high school: Computer science is way too math-y. I want to code!

Me coding php: Just make it work.

Me coding typescript: Just make it work.

Me coding scala: Just make it ... what ... how do I make it work!?!

Me asking stackoverflow: How do I do X in scala some functional programming stuff in mind in order to keep immutability.

Somebody way smarter than I: "In scalaz, a function A => A is called an endomorphism and is a Monoid whose associative binary operation is function composition and whose identity is the identity function"

Me now: Fuck my old arrogant self.

"took you long enough" gave me a computer at five - was programming at 6, learned Python and Ruby by 10.

The ascii DEL character 0x7F or b1111111 historically had a special relationship with punch tape programming, if the programmer made a mistake punching out a character then they could simply punch out all the holes and the computer would skip that character, effectively deleting it, and saving the programmer from starting over.

This happened when I finished highschool.

I was looking for a programming related career at university, and I had two options: Computer systems engineering or Software engineering. I commented this to my mom.

Me: Mom, this university offers Software engineering. The thing is that the campus is 1 hour from the city and it’s a new career, so I don’t know if it’s a good idea or not.
Mom: Why Software engineering? Don’t you want to be a developer?
Me: Yes, that’s why I was thinking of taking Software engineering
...
Mom: Is not “Software” what is inside the computer? (Inside the chasis on desktop computers)

I started laughing so hard 😂 and, of course, I ran away

Do some cool shit that I’ve always wanted to do.

- learn more about machine learning and computer vision
- learn C / C++ / rust
- learn embedded systems / programming
- learn more EE centered stuff

If this masterpiece came from my coworker I would smash his computer, burn his house, wipe his gene from poor mother earth. Luckily it came from my new programming student, so I find it adorable and make a post here.

Thought I was getting a handle on this whole programming thing....started reading The Art of Computer Programming by Knuth....feel deeply ashamed of my knowledge (or lack of)...superiority complex increasing with every page.

Today I replaced my php teacher (who was ill) during 3 hours. It's not the first time, I already helped my fellow students for this php class but this time it was different. It's was kind of official since my teacher came in and said "Adrien will give you the lesson today, he knows it by heart".

I have to say that I'm starting to like teaching, the satisfaction that you helped someone getting better at something is just amazing. It was a really good experience !

Is computer science necessary? How many of you, in the programming/development field, have not studied CS?

God. Damnit.

Started programming on one of these bad boys. It's an ABC80 a Swedish built computer.

Boy did I envy the kids that later got a C64 with color graphics. After all black and white is not that sexy... But I made my first steps in a version of basic none the less.

Tabs vs Space
Python says this

My junior high school computer programming (Visual Basic) teacher.
She was the spoiled brat of our head teacher. Had just graduated and gotten her bachelor degree. Didn't know jack shit about programming or teaching. Would constantly mock and belittle us for not being able to answer the questions and didn't actually teach us anything.

I remember when I was just a child, 6 or 7 I think, my uncle bought a computer and it was a magical thing for me.
When I became a little familiar with it, I told my dad: "I really like to make programs for computer".
And I still like programming.

First year: intro to programming, basic data structures and algos, parallel programming, databases and a project to finish it. Homework should be kept track of via some version control. Should also be some calculus and linear algebra.

Second year:
Introduce more complex subjects such as programming paradigms, compilers and language theory, low level programming + logic design + basic processor design, logic for system verification, statistics and graph theory. Should also be a project with a company.

Year three:
Advanced algos, datastructures and algorithm analysis. Intro to Computer and data security. Optional courses in graphics programming, machine learning, compilers and automata, embedded systems etc. ends with a big project that goes in depth into a CS subject, not a regular software project in java basically.

Circa spring of last year, Computer Science 1

The guy sitting next to me asked me a clarifying question about what our professor was mumbling and scribbling illegibly on the board.
I start to respond, only for the professor to YELL at me in front of the class for helping him, saying that programming was a personal affair and that I should be minding myself.
He even yelled at me for helping someone that is "too stupid help themselves" and that I shouldn't worry if the person next to me doesn't get it.
I felt bad, the kid next to me felt bad, and I avoided a semester of computer science just to not have him again.

Truth to be told, I've learnt more programming here on DevRant in about a month than in one year of my computer science course in college.

My introduction to programming and computers is quite different than most as in I didn't start programming first, I started by taking electronic parts from my toys and repurposing them or using them in different things, we had a computer I used to play games with but at age 7 my father died and my mother needed money so she sold it, the next laptop I got was at age 11 and then I started coding.

Dad: “Cool! Now you can sit around like you always do!” 😑

Mom: “So you are programming the computer? Can you show me how to do x on my computer/iPhone?” Except it’s the same questions every single time... She never learns...

Brother: Talks to me about jailbreak stuff

And of course, they all ask me how to fix things on different electronics.

As long as the couch does what it should and is stable, I think it's a good code. Programming means knowing what the computer does before it knows it.
Heaven for programmers:

when you really want to code but you have a lot of school work and your course major has nothing to do with computer science or programming. ((

Computer Scientists:
Programming close to the hardware requires different strengths. That‘s why we created a manifold of systems programming languages

Also computer scientists:
Lets do everything the browser does in javascript lol

Me: do you even know what computer programming is?

Person: agh yea... its when you program a computer...

Telling my mom how to do computer stuff is like programming, I need to outline every fucking step. Yes this includes file management.

This little girl is helping me write some code! Isn't she a cutie!? 🐶❤️

Although Web design/development isn't exactly computer programming, I can't look at websites without judging them for how they look.

"You know computer programming?! Can you help me hack this game?" .........................

I'm 30 years old, sometimes I feel old to study computer/web programming.

What do you think? If it's not true, what can I do to change the way I think about it?

Th thoughts of one student.

I had two teachers in school, who even after finishing the class, continued to program with interested students. For example programming a robot or communicating over the serial port of a computer using Java.

Programming on paper (any benefits?)

For the programming exams we have at our university we have to write code on paper (like full code, not pseudo).

I feel that writing code on paper really limits my ability to express my programming knowledge, in comparison to writing code on the computer.

However, I cannot think of a real benefit of doing so. I mean most programmers (if I may generalize) have bad handwriting. Which is a loss-loss situation for both the examinees and professors (who have to read the exams).

Are there any benefits for writing code on paper?

Are any of you guys sentimental about your early programming efforts? I still have my first few simple Python programs on my computer, from years ago!

print("hello world")

I absolutely love the dev community but one thing I just can't stand is the snobbery that permeates it. I don't understand why some devs expect non devs to know or understand the intricacies of computer programming or even computers in general when it's really not their job to do so.

"Ahhhhh!! How DARE this non dev PEASANT ask me about hacking Facebook accounts!! Does he NOT understand the basics of DNS spoofing and social engineering!!1!!1! bahh"

Sometimes I get extreme hatred towards programming and computer science and engineering and I want to leave everything and disappear or get in a coma.

I'm absolutely loving the fact that my university is making me take their intro to programming course this fall when I've taken 5 programming classes in high school and already have intro to programming credits from a different university. Did I mention that I passed the AP Computer Science exam before taking even more courses? Do they not understand that I do in fact understand how to use recursion(the most advanced topic in their intro course) and don't need to spend a semester relearning what I already know? For Christ's sake they don't even get into OOP in that course.

Why do developers act like it's such a travesty when a non-techie says something wrong or ignorant about tech? It's not like we study computers and programming for a career and therefore know a lot more or anything...
Plus, it's not the non-techie's fault that the schools don't teach computer schools that well.

me: * is on Devrant at school*
teacher: what's devrant ?
me: it's where I go to complain about you
teacher: ...
yea. so fun story, my first computer science class I took freshman year where I knew more about programming than the teacher, not to mention most of the people in that class had 0 interest in actually learning computers

Today in programming class.
FizzBuzz on a sheet of paper. I mean, of course I aced the one thing I do in every language I learn. :)

Our teacher then proceeded to talk about the fact that some people, even having studied Computer Science, were unable to make a FizzBuzz program.

w h a t ?

Started reading The Art of Computer Programming. Really liking it so far. Trying to get over my brain’s natural reaction to math of entirely shutting off and finding an excuse to do literally anything else is hard.

For as long as I can remember I watched my dad at his computer doing work and programming, so I got interested in computers. I started using and mastering computer skills when I was 5 and helped people with their computer problems. I was hesitant to learn how to program because it looked hard, but I eventually have I'm and started to learn Java at 12. I started by making Bukkit plugins for Minecraft (1.7.10). I learned to program, because I knew that computers will one day help people, and I wanted to help people too.

My dad got us a a home computer on ~1995 without video games. But he brought a software where we can program our own games. So, we learn programming.

My TA is programming in Microsoft word for a computer organization course...

My favorite dev tool is my computer. It really helps me with programming. :D

I'm studying Computer Science and Engineering in Uni.

People don't understand the most fundamental principles of programming at all. Variables and functions are like a foreign language to them.

I get that not everyone knows everything but if you decide to go to uni to study programming, and you have never programmed before. Are you really in the right place?

Computer science curriculum != Programming instruction

Just reading Knuth's The Art of Computer Programming, where he created an own assembly language, so the book doesn't rely on a currently in fashion language... Meanwhile teaching students to code a GUI in java swing, because it was the new shit when the syllabus was created...

Okay,
So it began like I started my college for a CS degree and my parents asked me to look for a laptop. I started to search gaming rigs. Most bang for the buck. After wasting 2 weeks in analysing all the gaming laptops in the market, their fuckin cooling systems, heat pipes, SSD speeds, and what not, I finally decided to go for a ROG. My parents said that gaming laptops aren't good. They are heavy, etc. Okay. I then looked up for ultrabooks, like zenbook, envy, spectre, x1, etc. My parents said that a decent laptop would come for $700-800, and that's the price range I was searching in. After literally 2 weeks of mad searching, I finally decide to get an AMD ultrabook. I told my parents my final choice.

My parents:-

Oh! We didn't meant that. We just asked you to look for one. We ain't buying you one right now. If you still want a machine, we'll get you a $100 chromebook on your next birthday.

P.s:- My last birthday was 7 days ago😑

I didn't really plan to study computer science, it just kinda happened. So when a few years into school my GPA was low my mom concluded it wasn't right for me.

Thing is, I knew I was good at programming and problem solving and so did my classmates. I even helped people who the school system said were smarter than I was.

So now I am constantly doing projects and freelancing with hopes that I'll prove myself to her.

...

What is your opinion? Who agrees?

First exposure to computer?

Back in 2005, I think. Windows PC, I think. The rest is very blur.

All I can remember is it was white and monitor was big like a television. First ever computer of our family. No internet. No game except solatire and craps. Mainly just used it for porn-purpose. Did some programming assignments. Did some poems writing and then printed them out with all-in-1 printer and tried to sell the booklet to girls in public. (Obviously sold zero).

There should be an appreciation day for the core founders of computer programming.. They are Heroes

My parents have a very good grasp of what I do.

The first computer I got to try was one of the educational computers used for courses arranged by the company my mother worked for and my father studied programming before me ;)

Most unlikely / random thing that happend to you while using your computer (programming/designing/playing)

I really enjoy programming but I don't care about having the latest smartphone or the more powerfull computer. I'm not a tech guy, not even a geek... Sometimes people don't understand me for that, am I the only one ?

My team is full of unexperienced coworkers. Some are students (not computer science), some just finished their bachelor but again not in computer science or something related. It is absolutely ok if there are unexperienced coworkers, but that's too many and all I do is teaching the basics of programming.

Problem with code:
Computer: "Error on line 189: ....."
Me: "But the code ended on line 58 "

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------

Programming is funny
!false
(its true)

(i wrote it here because devRant allows us to post one rant in 2 hours)

How do you write your "identity" in your code so that others can see that it's you who made it?

Do you do it with a simple "made by" or do you write more?

My step father had gotten me into computer programming, more or less indirectly though.

My family supported my programming when it didn't involve destroying the computer.

All other times, it's just a magical black box to my mother

Is the way people solve problems intrinsic to the native language they learned growing up? Can the shape of our thoughts be optimal for solving certain kinds of problems? Like sentence structure, grammar, etc.

If the pattern of thoughts a language promotes can help us solve problems. Then is there a spoken language that can help promote solving computer science problems?

I know I have to work to think differently to program in different styles of programming. I wonder if we can learn from different spoken languages patterns of logic that are applicable to engineering.

Mathematics, while not a spoken language, has helped me re-frame things in programming. I think programming has also helped in other areas. Like using binary search to find the end of a pipe in the ground.

Fucking german computer science classes

You get a few UML structograms and have to finish a half finished project. It's the most boring way to learn programming ever. Instead of giving us a task or a project to work on, it's literally translating UML to C#.

Is this what one is gonna do later as a software dev?

I am beyond pissed at my Machine Learning class in college. you would think an advanced topic in Computer Science would require some prior knowledge of the field, but apparently not. A quarter of the class has ZERO programming knowledge, and the professor is basing the class around that. I took this course to learn how to CODE Machine Learning algorithms, not spend weeks upon weeks on learning how to calculate probabilities...

Started studying physics at uni. Frist semester i had to take an introductional course to scientific programming in Python. Thought i would hate it. I was very wrong. Loved it. The next semester had no programming and the physics was so not what i expected. Dropped out and began studying computer science instead. Im now in my final year of my bachelore's degree, planning my master's.

What if I’m dumb as hell in reality and I don’t recognize it. I keep holding on to this false belief that I can learn programming, but going nowhere in reality. What if I don’t have any talent at all?

My iMac is dead after reinstalling Mojave. It’s a sign from god telling me to stop coding. It’s not for me.

What are the things in computer science do I need to learn?

So yeah, I'm still in high school and will be entering IT in a few years, but I am willing to learn now. I already have a good grasp of programming and can create good desktop apps and basic web apps, so teaching basic concepts such as variables, loops, functions is done for me.. But what computer science concepts should I learn next?

I was an introvert while growing up hence I found interacting with non-living things easier. When I was 11 i.e. like 17 years I told my parents to enroll me into computer classes. They didn't see much of a future in it so they refused. I fought hard and finally they agreed. Hence started my journey with computers.

First week all students were allowed to explore the computer we were assigned and also were taught to play basic Windows 95 default games to make it interesting. It was all fun. Next week the teacher said he would be teaching us how to tell computer to do what we want i.e. programming. Hearing that I could make my computer do what I want excited me a lot. I felt I could finally communicate to a computer. This is how I learnt BASIC. I was so amazed I could do so many things like take input and do calculations etc. I decided I would do this kind of job in the future if it exists.

So now I am actually doing what I wanted to do when I started programming i.e. coding job!

One of my cousin started his higher studies in Computer Sciences. He asked me to teach him any web language so I started with JavaScript. After one week, he came to me complaining that according to his C++ professor, JS is a worst programming language. The professor told him not to learn it.

WTH?

Year 7 maths in 1984 - the teacher had a computer and showed us some BASIC commands to do mathematics.

I was spellbound. That year my father also bought a Commodore 64 for the family and I gravitated towards it. I typed program listings out of magazines and learnt programming almost by osmosis.

I was wondering !
As a computer geek I would like to know everything from mathematics to programming , robotics and machine learning but as I go , new technologies appear and it's
just like an endless while loop!
I don't mean I wanna stop learning new things but just looking for a more effitient way for doing this!

Any idea about this?

So out of curiosity, does anyone here with a computer science degree actually use any of the non-programming classes you had to take for your degree?

All those damn hours studying calculus and discrete math (ugh, I hated induction).. Not to mention biology, organic chem, history... Ugh

Chemists recently "compiled" a programming language into chemicals! I'll admit that I have no clue how it works, but they were able to get a mathematical function working without any electronics. The article I read doesn't describe the speed of the reaction, so I'm not sure if it's really useful as a replacement for computer operations.

I got my first IT related real job. Im cisco certified and bachelor of applied sciences in computer science for 7 years. Programming for like 10 years. I have mixed feelings.

It's a sad fact of life that managing dynamic memory is a very difficult programming task. Some public domain X-Window applications are notorious for leaking like the Apple Computer board of directors -- Expert C Programming

I actually only started programming a little less than two years ago. I entered my freshman year of college as a mathematics major, but as time went on I ended up enjoying coding in C++ much more than trying to work out partial equations.

I have since become fascinated with many aspects of computer science, mainly web development and systems programming (I discovered Linux and the command line only a year ago and I'm practically in love). I've since been working for a couple fairly new startups with duties from developing a mobile native app in AngularJS/Ionic to migrating content to new servers and developing custom themes on WordPress. I have deep, deep aspirations of eventually being employed by Google as a Senior Software Dev (although I'd definitely prefer working for a company that would allow 100% remote work 😁). I've even finally began developing my own projects, ranging from a URL shortening service to a basic online encyclopedia.

I wanna spend the rest of my life doing this shit. Hell, I hope I die at my computer.

When I was taking a programming course as a Mathematics prerequisite, and then object oriented programming basics (inheritence, interfaces specifically) all just clicked at once. Immediately decided I was going to pursue the computer science major instead of math.

Decided to go back to school and finish getting my degree in computer programming

when you have a friend who doesn't know why she's studying computer science, and has lesser knowledge and passion in programming than you... Receives help from you and get a distinction while you get an A...

started programming in high school, realized during a hardware lab in my computer science class that I wanted to be a developer.

we hade to set up a network of 5 routers, and I was the last to finish because of a typo in one config. spent an hour debugging, the frustration and eventual feeling of success made me love working with computers!

The University Struggle: when you want to actually code and learn your major but you have an English essay, a Spanish project, chemistry homework, and a book to read all within two days.
.
.
.
Not to mention my actual computer science classes don't teach anything useful in terms of programming

Past two years when I was in 7th grade, my computer teacher taught us the first programming language ie Python. At first, I just copied the syntax in my copy, and in the evening, I searched for it on YT

This introduced me to a new world of programming and I started learning it further

Computer programming teacher wanted us to write some pseudocode to solve an algorithm just so we can practice writing some code and solving problems. The teacher needs a copy so I spent about 2 hours today rewriting all of that pseudocode because she wants it handwritten...

!rant

Hi! This is my first post, I've been programming for about 5 years now and know multiple languages. I intend to do a degree in Computer Science soon but I wondered if anyone had any advice about breaking into the industry, specifically video game development.

I'm not sure if this is really where I'm supposed to post this but I've seen others posting similar things so I figured I'd try it.

Thanks in advance!!

How much does one's strength in computer programming dictate their worth? I see such clever programs that do things far better than I could ever do, and then wonder how can I compete with that?

Hi. Im new to programmings on computer. Im learning css programming its so difficult. How long do i need to learn css programming so i move onto html programming ?

On a digital marketing course.
Teacher:
"Web pages are made of structured content and style, that's HTML and CSS. There are also many programming languages, like JavaScript or Python, but we are not discussing those here because it's computer freaks stuff. Now let's talk about cookies..."
Me: Should I kill myself now or wait until that man stops saying shit an die killing him too...?

My biggest data loss and also contributed in me getting into computer stuff was when dad formatted the computer before I was able to take a backup, felt so bad at that time it had all my photos from school with friends.

So instead of crying in the corner and me not knowing they can be brought back, at least half of them, I started learning how computers work, how software work, what type of software is out there ...etc. Though that brought more work for dad having to format my mess every month of so XD

But I ended up learning a lot of new things. Then one programming class at school sent me into the dev world

Like if you are Programmer.... Make your Computer Beep Boop ....Beep...Boop....

Old question: How to explain computer programming to my Grand Mom? 🤔

What do you guys think about people who call themselves programmers after learning few technologies from Onlinecourse’s . I don’t want to call someone programmer who doesn’t know very important and useful concepts called data structures and algorithms.

All the cool kids in the neighborhood owning a Commodore 64. I was about 7-8 I think. Piracy was big back then, the kids swapped those large floppies and tapes containing hundreds of games through the mail. And all those cool hacktros, trainers, intros and whatnot got me interested in computer graphics and programming.

“Computer programming is like the ability or skill to see what Picasso saw from all the different angles at once” - Erik Naggum

I knew I wanted to be a device in college when I found out about it and it all made sense. I loved computers, video games and programming seemed like a no brainer. Now I'm happily developing and graduated with a computer science degree.

Do I put my computer back together and do some programming. Or go back to bed

Not so much a problem with the way CS is taught, but I think it's a problem that a lot of people put emphasis ONLY on programming (and maybe data structures and algorithms) and ignore things like Computer Architecture or Theory of Computation.

Most of the CS syllabi I've seen are built very well, but many students (and some teachers) seem to ignore a bunch of subjects because they don't contribute to making them "hireable".

I used to watch my brother code in Turbo C++, creating console games and doing university assignments. Writing something on the computer which transformed into something animated was such a wonderful revelation to me and that's when I started to learn bits and pieces of programming. Now, I'm a fill stack developer :)

I remember that my granddad and I built a computer with old crappy hardware that we disassembled from other computers.
I mostly used it for playing games like Age of Empires or Rollercoaster Tycoon.
I really don't remember a lot about but I remember I also had internet. Never got any Malware tho haha.

Then sometime my friend came over and he showed me a website named "Scratch". We made a lot of crappy games and a cat that farts when you press a button.

So yeah I instantly fell in love and did a lot of "Scratch"-ing with my brother.

That's was the time I found my love for programming.

I think about 2 years later I got a MacBook (the old from my father) and finally started with real programming!

Now, after 6 years I have an awesome little ZenBook and am programming everyday.
Love it!

One advantage of being reasonably proficient with Haskell is being able to very quickly create maintainable programs, often without needing to write extensive documentation.

One disadvantage of having Haskell as a favourite programming language is sometimes looking like a pretentious ass.
But just read the type definition and think for once, idiot. How could "Monad m => (a1 -> a2 -> a3 -> a4 -> r) -> m a1 -> m a2 -> m a3 -> m a4 -> m r" confuse even a beginner to computer programming, nonetheless Haskell?

My cousin was studying computer science, and he was telling me about the coding and the programming stiff, I got inpired by him and I since then I wanted to be a dev, especially when you can make some thing from nothing, unlike other jobs you have to get tools a parts and start to attach them together in order to make a product, while programming all you need is your laptop and couple of softwares and you can make as products as you want.
It is MAGIC

While teaching theory is actually good, it doesn't mean that there is no room for any practical education either. Students needs to be exposed to modern programming languages like Python, Ruby while at the same time be trained in the pioneers of programming like C, C++, Java. It is only then would they be able to make informed decisions on who they really want to be. If you had one practical lab session on C and Java and then the rest of the semester about HTML, students would end up moving away from programming.

Concepts like programming and networking concepts should be included whereas ancient technologies like programming micro-processors (x386, x486, etc) should be excluded. Who programs x386 and x486 micro-processors anymore? While the understanding of how micro-processors and other low-level components in the computer systems work is very essential, doing practicals on them isn't really a good use of students' time, energy or effort.

What are your effective ways of learning how to program?

For some reason, I cannot use my computer for anything other than programming anymore. Whenever I turn the lid on, I can either write code or stare at the screen indefinitely. No other option!

the best part about being a computer science student is the lecturer can't decide either you are programming or in game

Hi, sorry to bother anyone but I'm a high school junior looking for advice on learning computer programming and related topics
I just want to ask what kind of resources I should look for and some things I should try to learn before I graduate high school (a school with no programming courses. :( sadly)

Any advice or help is appreciated. Thank you for your time

<notarant>
Just got my class schedule for freshman Computer Science. Find out they teach C++ for Programming 101. Guess I should stop using C for the next couple months and buy a C++ book.
</notarant>

Hi, what laptop would you recommend for programming. I was thinking of a Thinkpad

Is the Art of computer programming worth reading. As a junior developer?

What things do people around you keep repeating related to programming?

For me it is surely "linux is soooo permissive", which is true but still funny when people start saying it unrelated and simply as a mean to jokingly explain why something doesn't work how is supposed to. Even if the problem is not even on a computer

I was really bad in physics and we had energy, force and all that stuff, when I got to C, my very first programming language. I learned the formulas by writing a program calculating all the stuff we learned about in school.:D

Back then I didn't have a computer and wrote the code on paper before actually compiling it at my moms computer.

For all things, for all men, that a man compliments a thing does not imply that this man at least attempts to understand this thing. However, for all men, that a man criticises a thing implies that this man at least attempts to understand this thing.

For all computer programs, that a computer program is terrible implies that scrapping the current implementation of this computer program and beginning anew may be the best method of fixing this computer program.

With few exceptions, for all programming languages $l$, given sufficient effort, $l$ source code can be human-readable.

The UNIX philosophy never became outdated.

For all computer programs $p$, $p$ should be written sufficiently well that the author of $p$ can be prideful of $p$.

For all computer programs $p$, a specification for $p$ should be written before $p$ is created.

For all good computer programs, a good computer program can run on terrible hardware.

Every clock cycle is valuable.

Hello DevRant,
I need your help
I'm currently studying Game design and development first year in The Netherlands and I love programming but I hate designing. I was thinking about changing the course to something like Ethical Hacking or Computer science. The reason why I want to do this is that they teach us openfl until second year and I feel like I learn nothing until now.
Do you think would be better to change the course or to stay but start programming in something else? And what programming language would you recommend?
P.s. I also want to apply for a part time job/summer school to gain experience but I had no luck at all.
P.s.s. You are the best community for me!
Return 0;

Just in curiosity. How many devs here are use *only* laptop but no full set computer at home? Is it sufficient for daily programming and probably a little gaming?

I used to be a full set computer lover. But now laptops provide sufficeint compuing power with affordable price. Plus I am expecting quite frequent relocation in next few years. So I am considering buy a laptop and hoping it can be useful for 5+ years.

Any commrnts?

My first computer experience was when I was like 4 or 5 I didn't really understand it yet. My first programming experience was when I was 8. I really wanted to make my own website login system so I copied some PHP code and tried to open it😂. Ofcourse it didn't work.

At some point I was watching a sethbling video about programming mining turtles in a Minecraft mod called computer craft, which uses a reimplementation of lua with some mod specific functions. This inspired me to learn lua, then as I got bored with that I started moving through different languages until I settled on primarily kotlin and rust

On the introduction day of my Computer science course, we all were to sit in "welcome groups" and tell a little bit about our programming background.
Most of us were beginners, but one of the guys told me he'd been "messing around with some Java a while back", so I thought I'd ask him about help when we had our first real Java programming assignment. I was surprised to learn that he wasn't able to help me at all. He seemed to know less than me, a complete beginner, on the different OO concepts and Java syntax. Furthermore, he seemed to have zero interest in anything development related.

It was later revealed that he meant that he had been messing around with INSTALLING Java on his computer a while back, but never really made it work. *facepalm*

Needless to say, he was a great group member in the assignments that followed. /s

I just finished my second semester of computer programming. I then say to myself : "Let's use my new knowledge to make the program I worked on for fun two years ago better and more efficient!".

It was a bad idea.

Which is more difficult? The pencil or the modern computer?

In the old days "hacking" was used for just about any coding, or "computer programming" as it was called back then. There was even a programming magazine called "Hacker", which had nothing to do with the "malevolous programming" that the word "hacker" has become to mean.

Computer society in High school

So while I was in high school, I got excited over the computer society because I thought I could learn a lot of programming stuff from them. I joined and quickly realized that that was a big mistake. They were teaching stuff that you learn from the computer classes in grammar school, eg MS Office, email clients.

I started to learn programming myself through learning online, eventually being the best student in the society. The teacher in charge chose me to teach the class next year, but it cannot be too advance as people would get bored and confused.

Why does classes have to be like this, cannot be too hard. Has to be something that clearly everyone knows. This kind of bullshit has to stop.

The near future is in IOT and device programming...
In ten years most of us will have some kind of central control and more and more stuff connected to IOT, security will be even a bigger problem with all the Firmware bugs and 0-day exploits, and In 10 years IOT programmers will be like today's plumbers... You need one to make a custom build and you must pay an excessive hour salary.
My country is already getting Ready, I'm starting next month a 1-year course on automation and electronics programming paid by the government.

On the other hand, most users will use fewer computers and more tablets and phones, meaning jobs in the backend and device apps programming and less in general computer programs for the general public.

Programmers jobs will increase as general jobs decrease, as many jobs will be replaced by machines, but such machines still need to be programmed, meaning trading 10 low-level jobs for 1 or 2 programming jobs.

Unlike most job areas, self-tough and Bootcamp programmers will have a chance for a job, as experience and knowledge will be more important than a "canudo" (Portuguese expression for the paper you get at the end of a university course). And we will see an increase of Programmer jobs class, with lower paid jobs for less experienced and more well-paid jobs for engineers.

In 10 years the market will be flooded with programmers and computer engineers, as many countries are investing in computer classes in the first years of the kids, So most kids will know at least one programming language at the end of their school and more about computers than most people these days.

Well... I was in a room, my computer was in a room. I was bored, so I just browsed around wikipedia. Then, baaam, suddenly i was at the page for programming. I read about and i was in love. It was love at first sight.