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> I tell them to make something that they would find useful and put it out there. Can you imagine if one of these new open sourcerers took my advice and got thi

> I tell them to make something that they would find useful and put it out there. Can you imagine if one of these new open sourcerers took my advice and got this response, without the support I had. Can you imagine? That brought forward a repressed/unref'd memory... Way back in the late 00's, a teenage me was dipping his toes into contributing to open source projects. I don't recall the specific project and won't try to guess, but I can vividly recall this horrible response I got after posting some code for review. Some presumably older person on the mailing list discovered I was, in fact, a teenager. Went on a tirade about how "children" need to stay out of programming - on the project's mailing list. Nothing about the code, just an attack on me because of my age. I remember asking my parents what they thought. They told me I could be interested in whatever I damn well please to be, and that if I could avoid internalizing the response, reach out to this person and see whatever they had to say. Needless to say, this person didn't have anything friendly or actionable to say in a direct email either. I think that's the first time I ever bumped into an asshat online. Oh well, joke's on him. I only became more interested in computing and started a career in it.

bumblebritches5 4y ago
scrollaway 4y ago
Your parents sound pretty cool.
PostOnce 4y ago
We were all teenagers once, newbies, neophytes; we all wrote our first function at some point. It's odd how some of us forget that once we become competent -- once upon a time, we weren't. We needed a helping hand, a tip, some advice on a problem, and we went to people and asked for help and got it. I never ever fault anyone for being a newbie; I only fault them if they don't try. If anyone tries to do something, they should be commended for the attempt. A lot of people never bother to try anything at all!
- Teknoman117 4y ago
  I went to be a guest speaker at the high school I went to a few weeks ago. I was honestly surprised that the teachers were surprised I loved answering the students' questions. Like, why else am I here? Maybe they can identify with me more because I'm only 12-15 years into their future rather than mid to late career like their parents. I kinda did my 20-ish minute ramble on what studying CS looks like, what learning programming practice looks like, and getting into the tech industry after school. I tried to leave a bunch of places for them to probe and I was so happy that they did. Couldn't even get close to answering all their questions in the remaining 35 minutes.
- auggierose 4y ago
  Actually, I didn't go to people and ask for help. Instead, I was sitting in front of a computer for half a year, wondering why my source files I typed off some programming magazine would not run. I settled on batch programming for a while, because those .bat files DID run! Well, I figured it out after a while, but there never was a live human in the loop. Obviously this guys response is not nice, but I CAN understand wanting to restrict the quality of contributors I get. Trying out things is great, but do it on your time, not mine. Luckily, in real life for most projects, the number of contributors is so small that quality moderation is not a problem. I definitely don't like replacing proper technical design and documentation by social channels. Recently I tried to use a promising framework with very little documentation of its concepts, and their answer was to seek help in their Discord channels. I quickly ran into weird problems and bugs with the framework; I wasn't surprised.
alias_neo 4y ago
Your parents deserve credit here for that great response. My parents mostly encouraged me mostly by providing the tools and leaving me to it; I spent some of my early years (pre-teen) reverse engineering/cracking (education only, never released), then an inordinate amount of time playing the Discworld MUD. Once I got bored of BASIC my dad bought me some books on C++ and took me to a college course on PC building with him; though initially the college were reluctant to let a child take the course (I was 12). He'd often take me to work and answer all of my questions about what he was doing; PLC/panel-building at the time, with some very cool fibre optic tech and DIN rail mounted devices of all kinds; I'd help make wiring looms and labelling. He and I would build a new ("family") PC every year until I got my first job after uni and could pay for my own damn computer; He just uses laptops now and hasn't built or used a desktop since the last one we built together with my first pay-packet over a decade ago.
- Teknoman117 4y ago
  I was lucky. During the "core" years of my childhood (8-12), my dad worked from home. This is also when I started getting into computing. He always arranged his days so that he was off work by the time we kids came home from school. My desk was in his office, and in the summers he'd always answer my questions or at least point me in the right direction if I asked him something when he wasn't on a call. He always seemed to have this superpower of being able to switch his full focus instantly. Mom was a full-time mom until I was 15, when financial conditions ('08) meant they both needed to work. She has a masters in math education, so there was always at least one well educated person I could annoy at any time. I remember when dad first gave me the ability to use the internet by myself (2001, iirc). He told me how it was an unprecedented way of accessing information and learning, something he felt would have put him years ahead of where he was if he had it when he was in college. I discovered so many niche communities for the things I was interested in (LEGO Mindstorms, AVR, Rokenbok, model trains, etc.). I kinda yearn for the days when the internet wasn't the advertisement ridden and siloed hellscape it is today.
  - alias_neo 4y ago
    Incredible. I hope my children are interested in programming/IT as I am; because it's both something I'm good at an passionate about and I'd love to share that with them. I work from home now, and have done since Covid; so I've spent (almost) every day of my children's lives at home with them. I'm currently trying to work out how best to set up the older child (3yo) with a computer to learn on; Something like a child-friendly / fun version of Monkeytype [0] to get her reading/spelling/typing as she's always shown an interest in what I'm doing on the computer. I have a bunch of Pis and mechanical keyboards so I'm thinking I'll let her choose some sort of enclosure we can "print" (3D printing is just "printing" to her, because how could it have fewer than 3 dimensions?) and set her up nearby. The internet really isn't what it was when I was a child (not too far from yourself), but I guess that's the price for it going mainstream.
specialist 4y ago
> "children" need to stay out of programming Before I could drive, my father would taxi me to computer user group meetings and such. I've always talked too much, asked stupid questions. One time, a guy dismissed my question about tablet input devices, something like "You're too young to know about that kind of thing." It was one of the few times I've seen my father get genuinely pissed off.
- pfortuny 4y ago
  “There is no stupid question” is something any teacher should get ingrained in the minds of the students. Of course once the student STUDIES.
  - ben_w 4y ago
    Teachers definitely need to act like there are no dumb questions. Not because dumb questions don't exist — I've asked plenty of dumb questions (are my closed physics stack exchange questions visible anywhere?) — but because they're a necessary step to getting good.
- Teknoman117 4y ago
  My dad did the same for me. Starting at about age 10 he'd bring me to Chibots meetings - a robotics club near where we were living at the time.
Cthulhu_ 4y ago
Ageism never died on the internet I guess. I think people underestimate how many young people are online these days.
- KingMob 4y ago
  Well, sure, if you're an eldritch horror, everyone seems young...
pjc50 4y ago
I remember the first time I got "flamed": describing TinyCC as "terrible" for its limitations, on the FidoNet C programming board. I was maybe .. 14? Certainly the 2400 baud modem era. (Fidonet was an early federated message board system) (TinyCC was not Fabrice's project of the same name but an earlier freeware compiler that only supported the "tiny" memory model, and was therefore limited to 64kb code and 64kb data.)
wazoox 4y ago
Ah yes. I remember a long time ago I had corrected some out-of-tree Linux driver to support a newer Linux release and sent the changes to the ML, only to be chastised for not posting properly formatted patches... Mmh... OK?
wildcow 4y ago
As a grownup i would like to say sorry to younger you on behalf of other grownups. And to the younger you: go be whatever you want! Infact: if there is a teenager reading this right now that have been asshatted by a grownup about coding, don't take in a single word of the asshat: go be brilliant in you if-ststements and create new wonderful stuff. Please do.
- the_only_law 4y ago
  I wouldn’t be too surprised if the other people wasn’t even an adult themselves. I’ve seen plenty of young programmers that have been doing it for a few years treat other newer younger programmers with contempt.
dotnet00 4y ago
Meanwhile teenage-me (~13) had a ton of absurd questions and a habit of starting and 'announcing' projects I could obviously never finish (I was just teaching myself BASIC at the time and asking about making things like antiviruses). I didn't even really have an understanding of licenses etc so I eventually pissed off a bunch of people on the forum for the specific dialect I was learning. I imagine dealing with enough people like young me (curious but too much effort to babysit) might cause people to have negative associations of young teens in programming. My parents didn't really care for my interest in computers, thinking that I was wasting time and sacrificing school on 'games'. Although they at least humored me on getting books on more modern languages like C# so I managed to improve. For a bit I even held an immature grudge on the guy who got mad at me which motivated me to get better. Nowadays it's all just a funny memory though.
ericmcer 4y ago
Do people really forget that they once did not have an ability they currently have. It is strange to be unable to associate your past ignorance with other peoples current ones. A lot of online communities have pretty inclusive rulesets also, even posting on some reddit forums you will quickly get treated like a pariah for violating some obscure syntax rule.

bumblebritches5 4y ago

scrollaway 4y ago

Your parents sound pretty cool.

PostOnce 4y ago

We were all teenagers once, newbies, neophytes; we all wrote our first function at some point. It's odd how some of us forget that once we become competent -- once upon a time, we weren't. We needed a helping hand, a tip, some advice on a problem, and we went to people and asked for help and got it. I never ever fault anyone for being a newbie; I only fault them if they don't try. If anyone tries to do something, they should be commended for the attempt. A lot of people never bother to try anything at all!

Teknoman117 4y ago
I went to be a guest speaker at the high school I went to a few weeks ago. I was honestly surprised that the teachers were surprised I loved answering the students' questions. Like, why else am I here? Maybe they can identify with me more because I'm only 12-15 years into their future rather than mid to late career like their parents. I kinda did my 20-ish minute ramble on what studying CS looks like, what learning programming practice looks like, and getting into the tech industry after school. I tried to leave a bunch of places for them to probe and I was so happy that they did. Couldn't even get close to answering all their questions in the remaining 35 minutes.
auggierose 4y ago
Actually, I didn't go to people and ask for help. Instead, I was sitting in front of a computer for half a year, wondering why my source files I typed off some programming magazine would not run. I settled on batch programming for a while, because those .bat files DID run! Well, I figured it out after a while, but there never was a live human in the loop. Obviously this guys response is not nice, but I CAN understand wanting to restrict the quality of contributors I get. Trying out things is great, but do it on your time, not mine. Luckily, in real life for most projects, the number of contributors is so small that quality moderation is not a problem. I definitely don't like replacing proper technical design and documentation by social channels. Recently I tried to use a promising framework with very little documentation of its concepts, and their answer was to seek help in their Discord channels. I quickly ran into weird problems and bugs with the framework; I wasn't surprised.

alias_neo 4y ago

Your parents deserve credit here for that great response. My parents mostly encouraged me mostly by providing the tools and leaving me to it; I spent some of my early years (pre-teen) reverse engineering/cracking (education only, never released), then an inordinate amount of time playing the Discworld MUD. Once I got bored of BASIC my dad bought me some books on C++ and took me to a college course on PC building with him; though initially the college were reluctant to let a child take the course (I was 12). He'd often take me to work and answer all of my questions about what he was doing; PLC/panel-building at the time, with some very cool fibre optic tech and DIN rail mounted devices of all kinds; I'd help make wiring looms and labelling. He and I would build a new ("family") PC every year until I got my first job after uni and could pay for my own damn computer; He just uses laptops now and hasn't built or used a desktop since the last one we built together with my first pay-packet over a decade ago.

Teknoman117 4y ago
I was lucky. During the "core" years of my childhood (8-12), my dad worked from home. This is also when I started getting into computing. He always arranged his days so that he was off work by the time we kids came home from school. My desk was in his office, and in the summers he'd always answer my questions or at least point me in the right direction if I asked him something when he wasn't on a call. He always seemed to have this superpower of being able to switch his full focus instantly. Mom was a full-time mom until I was 15, when financial conditions ('08) meant they both needed to work. She has a masters in math education, so there was always at least one well educated person I could annoy at any time. I remember when dad first gave me the ability to use the internet by myself (2001, iirc). He told me how it was an unprecedented way of accessing information and learning, something he felt would have put him years ahead of where he was if he had it when he was in college. I discovered so many niche communities for the things I was interested in (LEGO Mindstorms, AVR, Rokenbok, model trains, etc.). I kinda yearn for the days when the internet wasn't the advertisement ridden and siloed hellscape it is today.
- alias_neo 4y ago
  Incredible. I hope my children are interested in programming/IT as I am; because it's both something I'm good at an passionate about and I'd love to share that with them. I work from home now, and have done since Covid; so I've spent (almost) every day of my children's lives at home with them. I'm currently trying to work out how best to set up the older child (3yo) with a computer to learn on; Something like a child-friendly / fun version of Monkeytype [0] to get her reading/spelling/typing as she's always shown an interest in what I'm doing on the computer. I have a bunch of Pis and mechanical keyboards so I'm thinking I'll let her choose some sort of enclosure we can "print" (3D printing is just "printing" to her, because how could it have fewer than 3 dimensions?) and set her up nearby. The internet really isn't what it was when I was a child (not too far from yourself), but I guess that's the price for it going mainstream.

specialist 4y ago

> "children" need to stay out of programming Before I could drive, my father would taxi me to computer user group meetings and such. I've always talked too much, asked stupid questions. One time, a guy dismissed my question about tablet input devices, something like "You're too young to know about that kind of thing." It was one of the few times I've seen my father get genuinely pissed off.

pfortuny 4y ago
“There is no stupid question” is something any teacher should get ingrained in the minds of the students. Of course once the student STUDIES.
- ben_w 4y ago
  Teachers definitely need to act like there are no dumb questions. Not because dumb questions don't exist — I've asked plenty of dumb questions (are my closed physics stack exchange questions visible anywhere?) — but because they're a necessary step to getting good.
Teknoman117 4y ago
My dad did the same for me. Starting at about age 10 he'd bring me to Chibots meetings - a robotics club near where we were living at the time.

Cthulhu_ 4y ago

Ageism never died on the internet I guess. I think people underestimate how many young people are online these days.

KingMob 4y ago
Well, sure, if you're an eldritch horror, everyone seems young...

pjc50 4y ago

I remember the first time I got "flamed": describing TinyCC as "terrible" for its limitations, on the FidoNet C programming board. I was maybe .. 14? Certainly the 2400 baud modem era. (Fidonet was an early federated message board system) (TinyCC was not Fabrice's project of the same name but an earlier freeware compiler that only supported the "tiny" memory model, and was therefore limited to 64kb code and 64kb data.)

wazoox 4y ago

Ah yes. I remember a long time ago I had corrected some out-of-tree Linux driver to support a newer Linux release and sent the changes to the ML, only to be chastised for not posting properly formatted patches... Mmh... OK?

wildcow 4y ago

As a grownup i would like to say sorry to younger you on behalf of other grownups. And to the younger you: go be whatever you want! Infact: if there is a teenager reading this right now that have been asshatted by a grownup about coding, don't take in a single word of the asshat: go be brilliant in you if-ststements and create new wonderful stuff. Please do.

the_only_law 4y ago
I wouldn’t be too surprised if the other people wasn’t even an adult themselves. I’ve seen plenty of young programmers that have been doing it for a few years treat other newer younger programmers with contempt.

dotnet00 4y ago

Meanwhile teenage-me (~13) had a ton of absurd questions and a habit of starting and 'announcing' projects I could obviously never finish (I was just teaching myself BASIC at the time and asking about making things like antiviruses). I didn't even really have an understanding of licenses etc so I eventually pissed off a bunch of people on the forum for the specific dialect I was learning. I imagine dealing with enough people like young me (curious but too much effort to babysit) might cause people to have negative associations of young teens in programming. My parents didn't really care for my interest in computers, thinking that I was wasting time and sacrificing school on 'games'. Although they at least humored me on getting books on more modern languages like C# so I managed to improve. For a bit I even held an immature grudge on the guy who got mad at me which motivated me to get better. Nowadays it's all just a funny memory though.

ericmcer 4y ago

Do people really forget that they once did not have an ability they currently have. It is strange to be unable to associate your past ignorance with other peoples current ones. A lot of online communities have pretty inclusive rulesets also, even posting on some reddit forums you will quickly get treated like a pariah for violating some obscure syntax rule.