IRC was where I learned to program in the late 90's. Both through instruction on channels like #C, and also literally implementing the RFC's - building both bot

IRC was where I learned to program in the late 90's. Both through instruction on channels like #C, and also literally implementing the RFC's - building both bots and servers. It was a rush building "bot/server" combos like Nickserv... felt like superpowers and you could do all kinds of things through spoofing names and whatnot. (I mean it was pointless since the only servers I could pair with were other empty ones with one or two people... but still - it was fun!) I guess at some point my trajectory just.. changed - moving from that world to less heady stuff like Flash and so on... but the nostalgia is strong and I feel very lucky to have gotten my start in tech that way.