I have Flash to thank as my gateway into real programming. I was very young (11 or 12 years old). I created personal project games that really helped me love pr

I have Flash to thank as my gateway into real programming. I was very young (11 or 12 years old). I created personal project games that really helped me love programming. They were never good enough to be published, but I enjoyed them. At the time with no guidance, trying to build desktop applications was overwhelming (I couldn't figure out where to start), and building complicated games in the browser with HTML and JavaScript wasn't a thing (there was no HTML 5 or web canvas). Building a real game in a real game engine felt impossibly out of reach for me at the time. Flash, through ActionScript 2 and 3, gave me that portal to make something real, and taught me all of my fundamentals around loops, functions, arrays, etc. I found a home in StackOverflow and learnt a huge amount. I won't pretend that my games were great, but they really helped to solidify that programming was something that I loved. Without Flash I don't know that I would be where I am today. I now work as an IC in a huge international company. I didn't go down the game development route as I assumed that I would, as I learnt that my passion was in programming itself and not in just writing games. The Flash games were on my personal website when I applied for internships, and I'm sure I have them to thank in part for helping get me through the door (my interviewer did check out the projects on my website). I was sad, but understanding, when Flash finally came to an end. It felt like an end of an era for me, despite having not used it for a very long time. If you got this far, thanks for taking the time to read my reflections!