Writing a web crawler 5-6 years ago (in PHP no less) was what really turned me into a programmer ... Up to that point I had just been a html/css dude who would

Writing a web crawler 5-6 years ago (in PHP no less) was what really turned me into a programmer ... Up to that point I had just been a html/css dude who would hack at PHP as needed, but kept trying to do more and more with it. I learned so much about the interwebs ... http, urls (their construction), html markup and why things work the way they do ... learned about threading, using queues, and finally ... really grokked OOP. Best of all I gained a newfound respect and understanding of Googlebot and web browsers in General ... dealing with people's crazy ass html code is not. easy. If I ever teach a class on programming ... its something I'd love to have my students attempt as a semester long (background) project. Good times.