[3pt14159]

Wow, that's an even longer time. I started tinkering with code in the late 80s when I got my first computer at 4, then went to college when I was 11. First job at 14. I feel like 30 years of coding is long enough to feel like a long, long time. My pops had punchcards at home from the good ol' days.

I wasn't part of the couple waves of programmers, but I think it is fair to say I was in pretty early. Retying out programs from magazines isn't even something most programmers have considered these days, let alone programming without the internet.

But the essence of your comment is right. Of course there would be people out there that have programmed for twice as long as I have. That's a little frightening to think of.

[danaliv]

> Retyping out programs from magazines isn't even something most programmers have considered these days

Oof, this takes me back to the day I learned about RAM the hard way. I was typing out a program from a magazine. It seemed like it took forever, even then. About halfway through the computer rudely informed me that 4K of RAM is not, in fact, enough for everyone.

[arafalov]

Ha. Soviet magazines were more considering. They listed memory requirements well in advance, when I was learning racing games for my programmable calculator in late 1980s.

[stevesimmons]

Was that a Vic-20? 3583 bytes free, after taking out the 22x23 screen display.

[danaliv]

We have a winner. :)

[tonyarkles]

The memories! POKE 36879!

I learned originally on a VIC-20 by typing in games out of books from the public library. At some point we upgraded to an XT and a friend sold me a copy of Power C for $20. It came with a beautiful hard copy library reference and the rest, as they say, is history!

[gstipi]

Power C! I grew up in Germany and after the inevitable BASIC, C was the second language I learned, using Power C as a compiler, which I ordered by mail and which arrived from the States several weeks later, including the hard copy reference manual you mention. I also remember it came with a rudimentary graphics library I used to create screen savers for friends. Good times.

Check this out for a trip down memory lane: http://www.mixsoftware.com/product/powerc.htm

[tonyarkles]

Still costs the same now as it did when I bought it!

Yeah, the graphics library was great! When I moved on to Linux and gcc, I was disappointed for a while that I didn't have all those super simple primitives to work with.

[AlchemistCamp]

What about the other 7 bytes?

[golergka]

> Retyping out programs from magazines isn't even something most programmers have considered these days

I'm still retyping stuff from stack overflow instead of copying. I find it really effective to really think through the code you're borrowing from somewhere — because once it's committed under your name, you're the one responsible for it.

[stuartd]

The last thing I think I got from SO was an implementation of the Boyer-Moore Algorithm for a byte searcher. I think retyping it would have probably introduced bugs: and as it worked on a test case I had to hand and could verify (finding the data header size in a WAV file by looking for `data` followed by the SubChunk2Size bits, which I could verify with `afinfo`) I was happy to use it rather than learn how the algorithm worked.

As Morpheus said, “Time is always against us”.. so I just made sure it followed our coding standards, checked the test cases, and moved on.

But, I am old enough to remember code listings in magazines. I like to think the typesetters introduced deliberate mistakes because they hated the work so much - not to disrespect the fine profession of typesetters, but when you set your 100th `Poke` command in a row, you might think this isn’t what you signed up for..

[JackFr]

> I'm still retyping stuff from stack overflow instead of copying. I find it really effective to really think through the code you're borrowing from somewhere

Numerical Recipes in C. Had the hard copy but not the disk.

Often the code was just to obscure to work out as you typed, but there was some real value to typing it in. You got some real feel for it. Additionally it offered hard lessons in writing test cases.

[ZephyrBlu]

You went to college, as in university, when you were 11?!

[burkaman]

I was curious too: https://torontolife.com/life/went-college-11/

[ZephyrBlu]

Well that's interesting. I guess he's basically a genius then?

[3pt14159]

Please don't call me that. I really believe any 11 year old could learn what I did with parents like mine.

When I compare the skill involved with something like violin versus the skill that's needed to validate HTML forms with JavaScript or creating an application in Visual Basic, I really do not believe that people that happened to study software at a young age happen to be geniuses just because they did. Yes I'm smart, but I really believe that this path could be open to anyone that age if they have the interest and I think the internet has unlocked many people that have learned the same skills without the credentials.

[nomel]

I used to have this mindset, but then I had a small stroke and lost significant IQ points. I slowly, but never fully, gained them back over two years. I realized that the ease that I saw/see solutions, compared to others, wasn't just related to the time I put into thinking about them. Much of it came for free, in what I can describe as the length and number of the tendrils reaching out to explore whatever "problem space".

I no longer believe that "anyone with an interest" can be at the same level as someone that can just see the answers, with little effort. Some people have fewer/shorter tendrils.

This has definitely changed the way I interact with people. I used to get frustrated when people, who I thought should be able to understand, couldn't. Now I realize that they just can't as easily. They need that picture drawn out for them, and even then, they'll never see the nuances or perceive the textures of the problem, unless you point it out to them.

I think I'm lucky for being born with the mind that I have. It has made my life easy, pulling me out of poverty, with a mostly addictive enjoyment in what I do. I think you're probably luckier than you realize.

[Cogito]

The way I talk about this is to frame what people call intelligence as the combination of memory (+ actual memories) and comprehension.

Your ability to 'just see the answers', in this framing, stems from having a lot of data points readily available and the ability to combine them together quickly.

There are definitely people who are better at remembering things, and piecing multiple ideas together quickly, but these are also skills that can be trained. I think it's likely that a lot of 'intelligent' people are simply people who actively (though usually not consciously) train these skills because they enjoy them.

In the same way that many fit people don't have to think about exercising - they do it because they enjoy it or without any particular goal - there are people who see an interesting problem and immediately start thinking about how they might solve it or how it's similar to other problems they've seen.

In the same way that anyone can implement a training regime to improve their fitness I think anyone can implement a training regime to improve the number of data points available to them (read lots!) and their ability to combine that information together (solve puzzles, especially theoretical/not personally applicable ones like "how would I get that boat free?").

[replwoacause]

I appreciated this insight, thanks.

[ajfjrbfbf]

From the article:

> everyone seemed to think I was smarter than I believed I was. I feared I might fail miserably and finally prove how wrong they were about me

I can totally relate to that. Once everybody told you you're a genius, the pressure not to fail is incredible.

I started programming at 8. I got next to no help from my parents or my teachers, until the time I entered college, and by that point I felt I knew as much as the professors, sometimes more. I always avoided talking about programming, since that would get a me more genius calls on top of what my grades got me. And it doesn't help with making friends. Over the years I had maybe one or two friends who knew about it. Few would've believe me if I had told them what I could do.

I feel like there's nothing special about the path I took. I feel like anyone would be able to achieve the same knowledge I did given enough work and support. I must have spent thousands of hours programming in my teens. What nobody seem to realize is that the genius label is wrong, what they really should have told me was that I was "passionate". Anyone who is passionate enough can become a master.

[visarga]

> I must have spent thousands of hours programming in my teens.

That's what I think about when I hear people complaining about gatekeeping in our field. The books are open, the courses are there, interesting and useful applications abound. Given the same level of effort I think much of the difference between social groups would vanish.

[ZephyrBlu]

I don't know what the university courses entailed. I'm basing "genius" on my knowledge of the current Computer Science curriculum. If you were doing CS courses at age 11 I do think you must have genius level intelligence.

If it was more practically-orientated, then I agree with you :).

[ZoomZoomZoom]

Don't know about 3pt14159, but Erik Demaine started university at 12 and completed PhD by 20. So, while it's implausible, it's not impossible either.

[Dowwie]

I'm so glad that you come by Hacker News. What are you doing these days?

[3pt14159]

Thanks for the kind words :)

I'm not really sure what to work on next. I was focussed on arms control for cyberweapons for a while, and I made some real progress, but I want to work on something new now. Maybe finding a way to scale up good things like trust or good will? I want to find something where I'm making the world a better place but also working on something that makes me smile. Trying to fight weapon dispersion is exhausting and discouraging and, ultimately, as I learned, futile.

[physicles]

> Maybe finding a way to scale up good things like trust or good will? I want to find something where I'm making the world a better place but also working on something that makes me smile.

Have you made any progress finding something new to work on?

Maybe I'm projecting here, but I'd imagine this is the dream of most of HN, no? But I don't know which is harder: finding such a unicorn idea, or executing on it once you've found it.

[airstrike]

Wild idea: crowdfunded impact investing through monetized social gaming — plant 10,000 virtual trees and we'll plant one IRL.

[retreatguru]

There are many startups out there with meaningful visions and need experienced devs like yourself.

[bmiller2]

Thank you for trying

[_9omd]

> Maybe finding a way to scale up good things like trust or good will?

Have you considered working in the cryptocurrency space next? I think that would satisfy your desire to find ways to scale up trust. One of the key value propositions of crypto is building trust at scale on the pillars decentralization, cryptography, game theory, and economics.

[matwood]

> Retying out programs from magazines isn't even something most programmers have considered these days, let alone programming without the internet.

Wow. Flashback. I started programming late age wise (college freshman in the 90s), because until that first student loan we didn’t have enough money to buy a computer. I would go to the local bookstore and copy code out of the programming magazines and books. I remember writing some c++ code, bumping into a problem I couldn’t solve and driving to the bookstore to look at the books for a solution.

[wildmanx]

Alright, so you are about 5-10 years younger than me and we started programming at around the same time.

I'd never say of myself that I've been programming "for a long time", let along "a long, long time".

[idiotsecant]

so at what point is your personal gatekeeping threshold met?