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I think you might be confusing "wanting it bad enough" with "going to a sufficiently well-funded school" to a point there. Some schools had that kind of equipme

I think you might be confusing "wanting it bad enough" with "going to a sufficiently well-funded school" to a point there. Some schools had that kind of equipment available for the students to use, but it certainly wasn't universal. I imagine it's a lot closer now, but poor schools are still underfunded to the point of teachers having to buy pen and paper from their own money, so it's possible that that still may not be available. As for time, I think the suggestion that the choice is between "learning to program" or "watching sports" is extremely reductive and not accurate to a lot of people's experiences.

malvosenior 8y ago
My school was extremely poor and underfunded. I was using Apple IIs in the late 90s. If my school had them I’m sure 99% of all schools in the US have at least early 80s computers available. > I think the suggestion that the choice is between "learning to program" or "watching sports" is extremely reductive and not accurate to a lot of people's experiences. I strongly disagree. That’s exactly what other people were doing while I was learning to master technology. We were all very poor. I’m not anymore, the vast majority of people I knew who didn’t use their time wisely still are.
- JanisL 8y ago
  Ironically some of those older machines seem like they might have been good to learn to code on. I remember the first code I wrote was on some really old Apple computer with basic (I think it was Chipmunk Basic) and it was really quite straightforward compared with some of the things I deal with now. I don't know how favorably I would have responded to something like C++ or Java some other professional-oriented language that was starting to get popular at the time. Clearly as a professional I wouldn't use that now but having a low barrier to entry at that point in life seemed quite fortunate.
  - sitkack 8y ago
    And the Apple II the parent is talking about aren't connected to the net. The singular purpose and tasking of loading Logo into machine like that is liberating. No distractions, one path forward, the keyboard, the screen, the manual and you.
    - JanisL 8y ago
      You raise a really good point there, I hadn't considered the distraction aspect when writing my comment but there's definitely a lot of benefit from reducing the distractions when learning.

malvosenior 8y ago

My school was extremely poor and underfunded. I was using Apple IIs in the late 90s. If my school had them I’m sure 99% of all schools in the US have at least early 80s computers available. > I think the suggestion that the choice is between "learning to program" or "watching sports" is extremely reductive and not accurate to a lot of people's experiences. I strongly disagree. That’s exactly what other people were doing while I was learning to master technology. We were all very poor. I’m not anymore, the vast majority of people I knew who didn’t use their time wisely still are.

JanisL 8y ago
Ironically some of those older machines seem like they might have been good to learn to code on. I remember the first code I wrote was on some really old Apple computer with basic (I think it was Chipmunk Basic) and it was really quite straightforward compared with some of the things I deal with now. I don't know how favorably I would have responded to something like C++ or Java some other professional-oriented language that was starting to get popular at the time. Clearly as a professional I wouldn't use that now but having a low barrier to entry at that point in life seemed quite fortunate.
- sitkack 8y ago
  And the Apple II the parent is talking about aren't connected to the net. The singular purpose and tasking of loading Logo into machine like that is liberating. No distractions, one path forward, the keyboard, the screen, the manual and you.
  - JanisL 8y ago
    You raise a really good point there, I hadn't considered the distraction aspect when writing my comment but there's definitely a lot of benefit from reducing the distractions when learning.