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I feel like I have a reasonably good track record of helping people get into tech (and was myself helped) and I'd note two things I've found very helpful: 1. I

I feel like I have a reasonably good track record of helping people get into tech (and was myself helped) and I'd note two things I've found very helpful: 1. It is very useful to let people know that the first ~500 hours of programming are the worst (not unusual for hard skills). I've seen now successful developers reduced to scream crying by the feelings lack of agency and overwhelming complexity during this period. Knowing it gets better can help them push through this phase. 2. Many people capable of being good developers respond badly to "Go build something you want to build!" because they don't actually want to build things, or the things they want to build are too outside their skill range and they feel disempowered. Giving someone a list of projects to do and textbooks to work through can be much more effective for certain people (like myself!).

WalterBright 5y ago
That's what made "101 Basic Computer Games" so successful. Type in the game code, often just a few lines, and you've got a working game!
galangalalgol 5y ago
Another way to handle 1.) is to let people modify the work of a master and build on their sholders to do fun stuff. I'd already "learned" a few languages (commodore basic, c, pre 98c++, and x86asm) well enough to do toy problems, but when my folks bought me quake I found it had a compiler and all the game logic in quakeC. I played the game a good bit but quickly it became about creating weird modifications, odd weapons shoggoths as pets etc. That exposed me to idiomatic code written by professionals, John Carmack presumably among them, while letting me skip everything between toy program or interrupt handler and using a game engine. Code spells, a game on steam has some of that benefit, but nothing I jave seen since has been quite as accessible as quakeC
robertlagrant 5y ago
> reduced to scream crying Wow, I have never seen this.

WalterBright 5y ago

That's what made "101 Basic Computer Games" so successful. Type in the game code, often just a few lines, and you've got a working game!

galangalalgol 5y ago

Another way to handle 1.) is to let people modify the work of a master and build on their sholders to do fun stuff. I'd already "learned" a few languages (commodore basic, c, pre 98c++, and x86asm) well enough to do toy problems, but when my folks bought me quake I found it had a compiler and all the game logic in quakeC. I played the game a good bit but quickly it became about creating weird modifications, odd weapons shoggoths as pets etc. That exposed me to idiomatic code written by professionals, John Carmack presumably among them, while letting me skip everything between toy program or interrupt handler and using a game engine. Code spells, a game on steam has some of that benefit, but nothing I jave seen since has been quite as accessible as quakeC

robertlagrant 5y ago

> reduced to scream crying Wow, I have never seen this.