5 ms·

You're a hero of mine so here is my story. Me in math class in 1996 - I had a TI-82 things are programmable so I have no formal education, my parents are illit

You're a hero of mine so here is my story. Me in math class in 1996 - I had a TI-82 things are programmable so I have no formal education, my parents are illiterate, and taught myself to program, and I begged them to buy me one. I spent time learning how to code on it, writing from scratch, the game Spyhunter. I couldn't figure out how to draw with lines or pixels so I used ASCII or text. I presented this to my teacher who told me "these aren't for games". I was crushed.

clamprecht 6mo ago
The fact that you made a game on a device that "wasn't for games" is even cooler.
- anthk 6mo ago
  You can write a game in almost every language. Check these ones written even on really low specs VM's: https://codeberg.org/luxferre/mu808 https://codeberg.org/luxferre/mu808 This could be adapted https://codeberg.org/luxferre/scoundrel-ports https://codeberg.org/luxferre/scoundrel-ports More info at https://luxferre.top https://luxferre.top
  - noworld 6mo ago
    One time I wrote a game in English.
    - anthk 6mo ago
      With Inform7 targeting the ZMachine VM you can literally say that =). Inform6 it's a 'small' OOP language where with the English library the syntax it's dumber than VB6, Lua or anything else. Basically the objects and logic describe themselves as a dumbed down config file. You create a meta-object for rooms and light, and then copy and paste to create rooms, containers and tools based on atributes (again as if it were a simple config file). Inform6 example: https://jxself.org/git/?p=cloak-of-darkness.git;a=blob_plain;f=cloak-of-darkness.inf;h=e8d748c3916b2be50d121ab5a50b2c5392b96869;hb=HEAD https://jxself.org/git/?p=cloak-of-darkness.git;a=blob_plain... Inform6 compiler: https://jxself.org/git/inform.git https://jxself.org/git/inform.git (cc -o inform src/* ) Inform6 lib https://jxself.org/git/informlib.git https://jxself.org/git/informlib.git To compile Cloak... inform +lib cloak-of-darkness.inf Lib should be the English library, you can get it with git submodule update --init --recursive or copy informlib to lib/ To play the game: frotz cloak-of-darkness.z5 Or LectRote under Mac... or WinFrotz under Windows, it will work the same. With Inform7 you just write clauses in English, the interpreter will write IF6 code for you and then call the inform6 compiler to create a Z5-8 game ready to run. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inform#Inform_7 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inform#Inform_7 As you can see, no AI needed, no LLM's, no huge GB sized software, just a Pentium MMX could be enough for i7, a 8-16 bit machine for Puny Inform games (kinda like Inform6 'lite'), a 16 bit machine for z3-z5 games and maybe a 'high end' 16 bit computer for Z8 games. A 386 PC would be enough to run 'complex' text adventures. And consistent enough unlike LLM's where the objects' enviroment is lost everytime.
    - mlry 6mo ago
      Irony is lost on this guy ... :D Edited to add: I comment on the guy you commented on, not you. Just in case. I did not want to reply to them to not give offense.
- a96 6mo ago
  The essence of hack.
MrBuddyCasino 6mo ago
Seems like everyone has such a story about a teacher. „No you can’t read more advanced books because the current ones bore you“ etc etc What is the matter with these people.
- ta988 6mo ago
  rigidity
  - 3form 6mo ago
    Personally betting on the "crab bucket" mentality.
- threethirtytwo 6mo ago
  It's typical. They're supposed have authority and be better than you. That is the purpose of their position and their identity. Don't be so quick to judge, because most people, including you would react the same way in similar contexts, for example if you were the top engineer at a company and someone started showing you up and being a hundred times better than you.
  - ndriscoll 6mo ago
    Not really? I've worked with people who were super productive with high quality work, and my reaction was to... gravitate toward working more with them. Some people are status driven. Some are not. Some are apparently pathologically status driven such that they'll compete with a literal child. In any case refusing to nurture such a child (even in effectively passive ways like letting them quietly do something more advanced with no specific instruction) and not being reprimanded for it would reveal that the actual purpose of their position is daycare worker, which should be a bigger strike to the ego.
    - threethirtytwo 6mo ago
      That’s what all people say. Everyone who is status driven will not admit or even realize they are status driven. But the fact of the matter is… it is human nature to be status driven. Everyone recognizes status symbols and possesses such a drive within them. It is also clinically tied with serotonin levels and observed in cross species behavior. To say you have no drive for status is an either a lie or delusional. The evidence is so ingrained in science. Now. That being said, the drive can be suppressed. But suppressing the drive doesn’t mean it doesn’t exist and that you don’t feel it. Also many people feel the drive at different levels of intensity that much is true. Anecdotally your response to me indicates to me that you have not suppressed status seeking drives completely. The key hints are you’re referring to how you’re drawn to people who do high quality work. That is orthogonal to status seeking. Your status and identity is tied to a certain type of work you do and you take pride in. Have you worked with anyone who was so powerful that their work invalidated, crushed and basically humiliated anything you did. And let’s say this person is not malicious. He’s just so much better than you that your work and identity is inconsequential and eclipsed by his work. If you said that you wouldn’t feel anything in the face of that then I would say that you truly do not seek status. I would also say you’re not human. That being said a teacher holds his identity as someone who is better than children. He needs to be better than children in order to transfer his betterment (aka knowledge) to children. His role in society and identity rests on that foundation. If children are better then him and know more than him then that is inadvertently an attack on his identity. His reaction is natural and expected. It’s not that he has anything against the child, it’s self protection mechanisms to protect his identity via deluding himself. Very typical. You see much of the same stuff with LLMs and programmers. A huge portion of HN was in denial for the longest time about the capabilities of LLMs calling these things stochastic parrots and thinking it’s impossible for the AI to take over. HN was just completely wrong about that and they were also wrong about driverless cars. The reason why they were so wrong is not because they’re making a logical and rational prediction… no they are choosing the prediction that most aligns with protecting their identity and skill set as programmers which is in the process of being replaced by agentic ai.
Sardtok 6mo ago
What a shit teacher: "No, don't be creative and learn. Do only as you're told."
- abustamam 6mo ago
  I do not learn from textbooks at all. I learn from playing. I played with all my toys "wrong" when I was a kid, or so I was always told. I always turned to the last chapter of a math book to see what I'm going to learn or to see if I could figure it out from what I already knew (what I would now call "first principles"). I took appliances apart and tried to put them back together. If I failed to do so my dad would help me put them back together, as long as I didn't tell my mom he was encouraging that behavior :) I watched my older sister play piano and learned the songs she was playing by ear, then asked her to teach me to read music. This behavior often came out as rebellious or prodigy behavior in grade school but I don't think it's any of that. I think it was just a matter of giving a curious kid space to play and learn and grow. kids like me often don't thrive in rigid environments not because we don't like rules or think they shouldn't apply to us but because our brains just don't work completely linearly. I'd wager that most kids actually learn better like this but it's not super efficient to cater to 30 different curious kids wanting to learn 30 different things.
mal10c 6mo ago
I have an almost identical story. I wrote a few games: snake and a choose your own adventure fantasy thing. And likely others that I can't remember, but yeah, I had a teacher tell me basically the same thing. I was pretty sad because those really took a lot of time.
clamprecht 6mo ago
In high school our computer class was in BASIC. They taught us to swap two variables A & B like this: h = a a = b b = h But I knew the BASIC we used had the SWAP command. On an exam, I used SWAP A,B instead of the above. I got the lowest passing score, a 70%, and the teacher wrote, "Do it our way please". No thanks Mrs. Mott, I'll take the 70.
- cardiffspaceman 6mo ago
  Those folks can FRO. The teacher my wife would have had for a Pascal class in high school refused to let her apply, saying it was not for girls. Her father said, you can take it at community college.
andai 6mo ago
I relay to you a nugget from my ancestor: "Man, this teacher sounds like a real shithead!"
balex 6mo ago
Now that's a tattoo right there. Never forget.

clamprecht 6mo ago

The fact that you made a game on a device that "wasn't for games" is even cooler.

anthk 6mo ago
You can write a game in almost every language. Check these ones written even on really low specs VM's: https://codeberg.org/luxferre/mu808 https://codeberg.org/luxferre/mu808 This could be adapted https://codeberg.org/luxferre/scoundrel-ports https://codeberg.org/luxferre/scoundrel-ports More info at https://luxferre.top https://luxferre.top
- noworld 6mo ago
  One time I wrote a game in English.
  - anthk 6mo ago
    With Inform7 targeting the ZMachine VM you can literally say that =). Inform6 it's a 'small' OOP language where with the English library the syntax it's dumber than VB6, Lua or anything else. Basically the objects and logic describe themselves as a dumbed down config file. You create a meta-object for rooms and light, and then copy and paste to create rooms, containers and tools based on atributes (again as if it were a simple config file). Inform6 example: https://jxself.org/git/?p=cloak-of-darkness.git;a=blob_plain;f=cloak-of-darkness.inf;h=e8d748c3916b2be50d121ab5a50b2c5392b96869;hb=HEAD https://jxself.org/git/?p=cloak-of-darkness.git;a=blob_plain... Inform6 compiler: https://jxself.org/git/inform.git https://jxself.org/git/inform.git (cc -o inform src/* ) Inform6 lib https://jxself.org/git/informlib.git https://jxself.org/git/informlib.git To compile Cloak... inform +lib cloak-of-darkness.inf Lib should be the English library, you can get it with git submodule update --init --recursive or copy informlib to lib/ To play the game: frotz cloak-of-darkness.z5 Or LectRote under Mac... or WinFrotz under Windows, it will work the same. With Inform7 you just write clauses in English, the interpreter will write IF6 code for you and then call the inform6 compiler to create a Z5-8 game ready to run. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inform#Inform_7 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inform#Inform_7 As you can see, no AI needed, no LLM's, no huge GB sized software, just a Pentium MMX could be enough for i7, a 8-16 bit machine for Puny Inform games (kinda like Inform6 'lite'), a 16 bit machine for z3-z5 games and maybe a 'high end' 16 bit computer for Z8 games. A 386 PC would be enough to run 'complex' text adventures. And consistent enough unlike LLM's where the objects' enviroment is lost everytime.
  - mlry 6mo ago
    Irony is lost on this guy ... :D Edited to add: I comment on the guy you commented on, not you. Just in case. I did not want to reply to them to not give offense.
a96 6mo ago
The essence of hack.

MrBuddyCasino 6mo ago

Seems like everyone has such a story about a teacher. „No you can’t read more advanced books because the current ones bore you“ etc etc What is the matter with these people.

ta988 6mo ago
rigidity
- 3form 6mo ago
  Personally betting on the "crab bucket" mentality.
threethirtytwo 6mo ago
It's typical. They're supposed have authority and be better than you. That is the purpose of their position and their identity. Don't be so quick to judge, because most people, including you would react the same way in similar contexts, for example if you were the top engineer at a company and someone started showing you up and being a hundred times better than you.
- ndriscoll 6mo ago
  Not really? I've worked with people who were super productive with high quality work, and my reaction was to... gravitate toward working more with them. Some people are status driven. Some are not. Some are apparently pathologically status driven such that they'll compete with a literal child. In any case refusing to nurture such a child (even in effectively passive ways like letting them quietly do something more advanced with no specific instruction) and not being reprimanded for it would reveal that the actual purpose of their position is daycare worker, which should be a bigger strike to the ego.
  - threethirtytwo 6mo ago
    That’s what all people say. Everyone who is status driven will not admit or even realize they are status driven. But the fact of the matter is… it is human nature to be status driven. Everyone recognizes status symbols and possesses such a drive within them. It is also clinically tied with serotonin levels and observed in cross species behavior. To say you have no drive for status is an either a lie or delusional. The evidence is so ingrained in science. Now. That being said, the drive can be suppressed. But suppressing the drive doesn’t mean it doesn’t exist and that you don’t feel it. Also many people feel the drive at different levels of intensity that much is true. Anecdotally your response to me indicates to me that you have not suppressed status seeking drives completely. The key hints are you’re referring to how you’re drawn to people who do high quality work. That is orthogonal to status seeking. Your status and identity is tied to a certain type of work you do and you take pride in. Have you worked with anyone who was so powerful that their work invalidated, crushed and basically humiliated anything you did. And let’s say this person is not malicious. He’s just so much better than you that your work and identity is inconsequential and eclipsed by his work. If you said that you wouldn’t feel anything in the face of that then I would say that you truly do not seek status. I would also say you’re not human. That being said a teacher holds his identity as someone who is better than children. He needs to be better than children in order to transfer his betterment (aka knowledge) to children. His role in society and identity rests on that foundation. If children are better then him and know more than him then that is inadvertently an attack on his identity. His reaction is natural and expected. It’s not that he has anything against the child, it’s self protection mechanisms to protect his identity via deluding himself. Very typical. You see much of the same stuff with LLMs and programmers. A huge portion of HN was in denial for the longest time about the capabilities of LLMs calling these things stochastic parrots and thinking it’s impossible for the AI to take over. HN was just completely wrong about that and they were also wrong about driverless cars. The reason why they were so wrong is not because they’re making a logical and rational prediction… no they are choosing the prediction that most aligns with protecting their identity and skill set as programmers which is in the process of being replaced by agentic ai.

Sardtok 6mo ago

What a shit teacher: "No, don't be creative and learn. Do only as you're told."

abustamam 6mo ago
I do not learn from textbooks at all. I learn from playing. I played with all my toys "wrong" when I was a kid, or so I was always told. I always turned to the last chapter of a math book to see what I'm going to learn or to see if I could figure it out from what I already knew (what I would now call "first principles"). I took appliances apart and tried to put them back together. If I failed to do so my dad would help me put them back together, as long as I didn't tell my mom he was encouraging that behavior :) I watched my older sister play piano and learned the songs she was playing by ear, then asked her to teach me to read music. This behavior often came out as rebellious or prodigy behavior in grade school but I don't think it's any of that. I think it was just a matter of giving a curious kid space to play and learn and grow. kids like me often don't thrive in rigid environments not because we don't like rules or think they shouldn't apply to us but because our brains just don't work completely linearly. I'd wager that most kids actually learn better like this but it's not super efficient to cater to 30 different curious kids wanting to learn 30 different things.

mal10c 6mo ago

I have an almost identical story. I wrote a few games: snake and a choose your own adventure fantasy thing. And likely others that I can't remember, but yeah, I had a teacher tell me basically the same thing. I was pretty sad because those really took a lot of time.

clamprecht 6mo ago

In high school our computer class was in BASIC. They taught us to swap two variables A & B like this: h = a a = b b = h But I knew the BASIC we used had the SWAP command. On an exam, I used SWAP A,B instead of the above. I got the lowest passing score, a 70%, and the teacher wrote, "Do it our way please". No thanks Mrs. Mott, I'll take the 70.

cardiffspaceman 6mo ago
Those folks can FRO. The teacher my wife would have had for a Pascal class in high school refused to let her apply, saying it was not for girls. Her father said, you can take it at community college.

andai 6mo ago

I relay to you a nugget from my ancestor: "Man, this teacher sounds like a real shithead!"

balex 6mo ago

Now that's a tattoo right there. Never forget.