| > How did you first get into programming? I stumbled upon a book titled 'The magic and mysteries of the command line' when I was ~13 and I've been hooked ever since. > Were any books, blogs, forums, or people particularly helpful for your growth? See some of my earliest posts, they are hilarious[1][2][3][4]. In each case kind strangers provided valuable insight, for which I am very grateful. [1]: CMD pls help [2]: Is in this code something wrong, my CPU is that bad or its normal this code [3]: Hello, I have tryed to code simple aplication for calculation of linear equation (like x + 1 = 5) but i ended cca here:[...] but dont know, how to finish it and above all i think it isnt coded werry good. Please, can you help me with it? [4]: Hi, I have disassembled virus (which btw stolen my WoW password few years ago) using W32DASM to get it's includes, and it contains only one function (KERNEL32.ExitProcess). I'm sure that isn't the only thing the program does. Is there any way to get real list of functions of the program? I also had a great friend whom I met while playing World of Warcraft. He was about 15 years older than me and we exchanged >100k messages about programming. When I mention this people assume some ill intentions but I wanted to meet him in person and he wasn't interested, and we're still in touch. What a kind man. He even wrote a PHP tutorial just for me. There were a few more experienced developers to whom I reached out who had a significant impact in the early days. I can't think of any books other than the aforementioned magic and mysteries that had a profound impact. The source code of major projects is the best resource. Learning Scala had a positive impact, even though I don't use it these days, because it enriched my vocabulary of programming paradigms. It also helped to complete all the standard theoretical CS courses at university which is also more about learning to think than being able to solve some concrete problem. Anyone can take these courses for free thanks to MIT OpenCourseWare[5]. MIT OCW is the most valuable resource other than source code. > What is it about coding that got you hooked? It was during a rather unfortunate period for my family and I was certainly trying to escape reality. It was an escape, an alternative reality that was much more interesting than the real world. Part of it is also my curiosity about how things work which I probably take from my father who is an extraordinary craftsman and a self-taught expert in many areas. [1]: http://programujte.com/forum/vlakno/5618-cmd-pls-help/ [2]: http://www.rohitab.com/discuss/topic/28776-cpu/#entry1002881... [3]: http://www.rohitab.com/discuss/topic/30229-linear-equation/#... [4]: http://www.rohitab.com/discuss/topic/36006-w32dasm-includes/... [5]: https://ocw.mit.edu/courses/find-by-topic/ |