[milansuk]

> Graphics and Sound! Nothing is more motivating for children than something that moves, blinks and makes noise. That's how I got into programming in the 80s

Same for me, but in the 90s. Back then, games push PC hardware forward and made a lot of people code.

Today it's probably the 'metaverse' that converts consumers into programmers. Sadly, many think that programming is cool all the time(thanks Hollywood), don't realize the complexity and give up soon.

[Supermancho]

I have never encountered such a person. Someone who was learning to program who referenced the 'metaverse' as a motivator for learning. I have found that the most common impetus is still gaming.

[weinzierl]

Glad to hear you had a similar experience. For me the 90s PC hardware era was somewhat of a let-down. On the home-computer graphics and sound were first class citizens. They were integral to the experience and even though you had to do it in assembly I found it logical and easy. Moreover, when you got it to work, it worked - always and everywhere. After all every device of a particular model was the same.

On the PC everything was hard and clunky. x86 assembly still doesn't make much sense to me and suffering through all the VGA adapter chaos (bitplanes, yuk) has left lasting damage;-)

Luckily in the 90s there was Linux and I started a studying at the university where we had workstations. Our SGI Indies and O2s were more to my liking.

At least this is how I made it through the 90s without losing the fun of programming. And then came the Internet and www and everything was more exciting then ever!

[robotnikman]

>Today it's probably the 'metaverse' that converts consumers into programmer

Anecdotally, it seems more kids are converted to programming through Minecraft or Roblox now

[solardev]

Metaverse like that Facebook VR game, or?