How I learnt to programme computers
OK, this is a little trip down memory lane and one I am more than happy to share. It is not meant to be a “follow this and reap the rewards” more a comparison of how things used to be…
Basics
My first programme was
10 print “Sam”
20 goto 10
it produced a screen full of Sam’s in a mix of lower and upper case – not rocket science but needed a little thought with a Commodore 64.
My second programme built on that – taking somone’s input and writing it across the screen. Trivial and instant, and understandable. I branched on to a translation programme for my first French homework and by the time I’d coded up the third really appreciated why that approach wasn’t going to work. I started playing with maths instead… but that’s a different story.
I got magazines and books talking about how to achieve movable sprites, moving things by joystick instead of mouse and got into interesting things like learning how to switch off the basic interpreter. My mum, dad and I worked out how to achieve what we wanted with the machine and thought about what more we could do. It was relatively easy, frustrating, time consuming and fun.
We learnt how to manipulate the graphics and the sound chips (SID and VIC to you and me).
My folks spent the best part of a day making a birthday card which would draw your name across a birthday cake drawn across the page and play happy birthday to you in the background. They spent the morning working out the tune on a recorder and encoded the tune they’d worked out. My uncle visited us that day just as it was all coming together and told them they’d got the wrong key – I’ve never seen my parents shoot such a dirty look at someone.
I was begining to work out just what could be done and played with computer programming as a career and that’s really the end of the story.
Only it isn’t – I learnt everything I could about how people responded to programmes and how they worked within operating systems. I learnt how operating systems worked by trying new things and still find the exploration fun.
But I don’t envy the people coming into the profession now. Learning is not as easy, everything is covered up, black boxed and intensely complicated.
How do you learn to programme now?
Posted: September 19th, 2008 under 42.