<story><title>How I learned to program</title><url>https://danluu.com/learning-to-program/</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>mattfrommars</author><text>Looking back in my life when I was born a year after Tavish Armstrong, I just feel so, disappointed how my life turned out to be. I had similar dreams and hope but they didn&amp;#x27;t work out in the end.&lt;p&gt;Only if I told my younger self to actually go through the Macromedia Flash book I borrowed once in high school, I would have had my first glimpse in computing. But during my early days, I never had anyone who was remotely interested in computers. I wasn&amp;#x27;t great at socializing either which would have lead me to people who were in machines. There was AP CS course at my university but I never took it only because I thought it was too hard and instead took AP Calc.&lt;p&gt;Without any concept of computing or the power of programming, how can a kid get into life of software development? All the random success stories I&amp;#x27;ve read of popular programmers these days, all of their younger days began with someone giving them a gift or some &amp;#x27;assembly&amp;#x27; language computer and started from there.&lt;p&gt;Wish the pursuit of programming caught me much earlier in life than right now, went into wrong major and always thought about programming, programming. Having friends and family who aren&amp;#x27;t into computers didn&amp;#x27;t help either until last year. So much life was wasted.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>solotronics</author><text>I used to spend 14 hours sitting at my computer installing weird operating systems and learning to code and hack games when I was 10. I still do basically the same thing at 30 but its cloud systems instead of games and will probably do this the rest of my life. If this isn&amp;#x27;t something that you are naturally driven to why force yourself to it? Find what you love and put your best effort into it. If what you love is just hanging out then be happy with that.</text></comment>
<story><title>How I learned to program</title><url>https://danluu.com/learning-to-program/</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>mattfrommars</author><text>Looking back in my life when I was born a year after Tavish Armstrong, I just feel so, disappointed how my life turned out to be. I had similar dreams and hope but they didn&amp;#x27;t work out in the end.&lt;p&gt;Only if I told my younger self to actually go through the Macromedia Flash book I borrowed once in high school, I would have had my first glimpse in computing. But during my early days, I never had anyone who was remotely interested in computers. I wasn&amp;#x27;t great at socializing either which would have lead me to people who were in machines. There was AP CS course at my university but I never took it only because I thought it was too hard and instead took AP Calc.&lt;p&gt;Without any concept of computing or the power of programming, how can a kid get into life of software development? All the random success stories I&amp;#x27;ve read of popular programmers these days, all of their younger days began with someone giving them a gift or some &amp;#x27;assembly&amp;#x27; language computer and started from there.&lt;p&gt;Wish the pursuit of programming caught me much earlier in life than right now, went into wrong major and always thought about programming, programming. Having friends and family who aren&amp;#x27;t into computers didn&amp;#x27;t help either until last year. So much life was wasted.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>aloner</author><text>Don&amp;#x27;t get too caught up with success stories about &amp;quot;epic programmers&amp;quot;, there&amp;#x27;s more than one path to a what you want. Stay focused and you&amp;#x27;ll get closer everyday.</text></comment>