4 ms·

Fool-proof steps to produce a software developer: 1) Force them to learn how to navigate filesystems, the basics of file-based config, how to find and download

by ashark 10y ago

Fool-proof steps to produce a software developer: 1) Force them to learn how to navigate filesystems, the basics of file-based config, how to find and download files, and basic networking to make their video games work. 2) Give them little money, but a decent Internet connection, and make 3rd party private discussion forum solutions expensive, so they have to learn Linux and DNS and how to configure a webserver and a database and one or more scripting languages to stand up a discussion forum for their friends. 3) Make doing similar things for others pay way better than anything else they can do, even if they don't really like doing it 40 hours a week. Make this be true year after year. I can vouch that this will work.

hutzlibu 10y ago
Have you made one single developer with it? Because those steps would totaly turn me off.
- ashark 10y ago
  It probably helps if you're in k-12 school at the time (loads of free time), Netflix hasn't been invented yet, it's still kind of possible to run out of crap to look at on the Web, and even though it's the mid-late nineties the only video game console in your house is an NES. I doubt I'm even close to the only developer who ended up here because it was easy to end up in a computer-related learning loop just trying to get video games (or Encarta, or that Win98 upgrade, or your fancy new dial-up connection, or whatever) to work, there were fewer easy distractions at the time, and that skillset originally picked up while trying to play video games provided surprisingly easy entry into a career path that was both (much) easier and (way) better-paying than the things we might actually want to do with our lives. Hard to get off that track when you're in high school and already falling into (relatively, compared to your peers) high-paying jobs.
  - majewsky 10y ago
    You missed the point. The question is not "How can I teach ashark to code?", but "How can I teach $average_kid to code?"
    - ashark 10y ago
      I think the broader message of the typical-90s-developer-kid journey is "make sure it's a requirement to do something they think is fun—and ideally not an artificial one". I don't know how you do that in the age of just-works iphones and free or dirt-cheap services to address practically every need—which is also why I don't have side projects. Point is, don't make the goal (for the kid) "learn to program". Make the goal "do thing that's fun (but you'll have to learn to do computer-stuff/programming to get there)" The ones for whom "learn to program so... you can program" is an effective motivator probably don't need much help other than a finger pointing the right direction.

by ashark 10y ago

hutzlibu 10y ago

Have you made one single developer with it? Because those steps would totaly turn me off.

ashark 10y ago
It probably helps if you're in k-12 school at the time (loads of free time), Netflix hasn't been invented yet, it's still kind of possible to run out of crap to look at on the Web, and even though it's the mid-late nineties the only video game console in your house is an NES. I doubt I'm even close to the only developer who ended up here because it was easy to end up in a computer-related learning loop just trying to get video games (or Encarta, or that Win98 upgrade, or your fancy new dial-up connection, or whatever) to work, there were fewer easy distractions at the time, and that skillset originally picked up while trying to play video games provided surprisingly easy entry into a career path that was both (much) easier and (way) better-paying than the things we might actually want to do with our lives. Hard to get off that track when you're in high school and already falling into (relatively, compared to your peers) high-paying jobs.
- majewsky 10y ago
  You missed the point. The question is not "How can I teach ashark to code?", but "How can I teach $average_kid to code?"
  - ashark 10y ago
    I think the broader message of the typical-90s-developer-kid journey is "make sure it's a requirement to do something they think is fun—and ideally not an artificial one". I don't know how you do that in the age of just-works iphones and free or dirt-cheap services to address practically every need—which is also why I don't have side projects. Point is, don't make the goal (for the kid) "learn to program". Make the goal "do thing that's fun (but you'll have to learn to do computer-stuff/programming to get there)" The ones for whom "learn to program so... you can program" is an effective motivator probably don't need much help other than a finger pointing the right direction.