5 ms·

You think you had it rough, at 15 I taught myself C/C++ Win32 programming with COM and early DirectX versions from textbooks and online tutorials. I'm thankful

You think you had it rough, at 15 I taught myself C/C++ Win32 programming with COM and early DirectX versions from textbooks and online tutorials. I'm thankful now though, as most modern frameworks are a breeze to learn by comparison. Looking back it was a bit like learning to swim by jumping in the deep end of the pool. It certainly gave me the confidence that I can figure stuff out, even in a new domain. And it's given me some valuable lessons in what makes a good vs bad API design.

andrepd 8y ago
Mine was Pascal in Turbo Pascal (6?) for DOS, circa 2004. It speaks volumes to the outstanding quality of Turbo Pascal and the Pascal language that it still holds up, more than 20 years later.
- matt_the_bass 8y ago
  I feel old. Mine was commador64 basic in 1988
  - dwd 8y ago
    Don't feel old. My first Basic experience was on a VIC-20, and I later got my own C64 in 85. Great computer to learn on but I don't think I would have got far without the Programmers Reference Guide.
  - wiz21c 8y ago
    I started with AppleSoft basic around 10 years old. It was fairly simple to achieve "stuff". But if your dream was videogames (and when you're 10 years old, well, you see :-)), then you ended up in front of the assembler/machine code wall. And there your dreams vanished (or you were crazy enough to learn by yourself and books). So I think Pico8 or Scratch are cool in the sense that they give you an environment to start programming. But OTOH, if what you look after is AAA games, then you'll soon be confronted to a brand new wall, ie : DirectX, GPU, C++ whatever. Now I rememeber of Processing which is cool too.
  - miesman 8y ago
    I started with Cosmac ELF 1802 with 256 bytes of memory 128x64 graphics. I would have thought I'd died and gone to heaven if I had something that ran pico-8. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/COSMAC_ELF https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/COSMAC_ELF
User23 8y ago
I hope I never have to look at another line of MIDL.

andrepd 8y ago

Mine was Pascal in Turbo Pascal (6?) for DOS, circa 2004. It speaks volumes to the outstanding quality of Turbo Pascal and the Pascal language that it still holds up, more than 20 years later.

matt_the_bass 8y ago
I feel old. Mine was commador64 basic in 1988
- dwd 8y ago
  Don't feel old. My first Basic experience was on a VIC-20, and I later got my own C64 in 85. Great computer to learn on but I don't think I would have got far without the Programmers Reference Guide.
- wiz21c 8y ago
  I started with AppleSoft basic around 10 years old. It was fairly simple to achieve "stuff". But if your dream was videogames (and when you're 10 years old, well, you see :-)), then you ended up in front of the assembler/machine code wall. And there your dreams vanished (or you were crazy enough to learn by yourself and books). So I think Pico8 or Scratch are cool in the sense that they give you an environment to start programming. But OTOH, if what you look after is AAA games, then you'll soon be confronted to a brand new wall, ie : DirectX, GPU, C++ whatever. Now I rememeber of Processing which is cool too.
- miesman 8y ago
  I started with Cosmac ELF 1802 with 256 bytes of memory 128x64 graphics. I would have thought I'd died and gone to heaven if I had something that ran pico-8. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/COSMAC_ELF https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/COSMAC_ELF

User23 8y ago

I hope I never have to look at another line of MIDL.