3 ms·

A bit of an aside, but I too was an Amiga user back in the day. Bought an Amiga 2000 in 1987. I recall reading the hardware reference manual and programming t

• SwellJoe 19y ago
  Yep, those were the horrible horrible days. I loved my Amiga. Really, really loved my Amiga. But programming today is so much better than programming back then. And everything that was good about the Amiga community is great about the Linux, Ruby, Python, Perl, etc. communities today. Amiga E and C with DICE were both hard slogs for me (my high school had BASIC classes and an AP Pascal class, still taught on Apple IIe computers--but I took them for the easy A rather than actually learning anything...from day one I knew more about software development than the instructor). ARexx was easier to grasp for someone who cut his teeth on writing games for the Color 64 BBS system (in BASIC). I also did a little 6510 assembly, but that was really unpleasant after the initial coolness factor wore off (and I embody one of Larry Wall's three virtues: Laziness, so the coolness wore off just about immediately). But, compared to Perl, Python, Ruby, Lisp, Scheme, etc. plus the resources available to everyone on the Internet, I'm kinda sad to think back on how much time I wasted slogging through poorly written books about poorly written compilers. If only I'd known to seek out K&R early on. (I knew enough to want the Amiga 3000UX when it came out, but I wasn't quite sure why!). What was a nerdy kid in the suburbs in the poor southeast to do?