Probably closer to 1999 but my first foray into web programming was Neopets. You could upload some HTML for your virtual pet and they'd host it for you. Spent a

Probably closer to 1999 but my first foray into web programming was Neopets. You could upload some HTML for your virtual pet and they'd host it for you. Spent ages making fancy animated text gifs from random tutorials only to realize that my friends couldn't see images that I had hotlinked to "C:\My Documents\awesome.gif". That brought me on a quest to find external hosting which led me to Spaceports.com and then IRC, mIRC scripting and then PHP... and now it's my livelihood. I just wanted to thank Neopets for giving kids the chance to program something and a non-scammy place to host it. I imagine I'm not the only one whose career was kickstarted by a virtual pet. I remember using this site primarily to learn about HTML: https://web.archive.org/web/19990224220115/http://www.htmlgoodies.com/ https://web.archive.org/web/19990224220115/http://www.htmlgo...