Thread: your inspiration

  1. #1
    Registered User rogster001's Avatar
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    your inspiration

    what made you begin coding?apart from love of fast cars/living, loose wo/men etc? for me it was a tv show with amazing images they said came from simple equation, z equals zsquared plus c, i read up, learned the maths and simply could not believe my eyes when those images appeared on screen in chars alone, the magic was unbelievable,.. and i was IN!
    Last edited by rogster001; 07-23-2010 at 03:30 PM.
    Thought for the day:
    "Are you sure your sanity chip is fully screwed in sir?" (Kryten)
    FLTK: "The most fun you can have with your clothes on."

    Stroustrup:
    "If I had thought of it and had some marketing sense every computer and just about any gadget would have had a little 'C++ Inside' sticker on it'"

  2. #2
    Lurking whiteflags's Avatar
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    The fact that my dad did it too.

  3. #3
    (?<!re)tired Mario F.'s Avatar
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    I really don't know. I can't put my finger on it. There's probably two explanations. The simple one is that I just wanted to do stuff in the computer. The ZXSpectrum (where it started for me) had a very big impact in my life. The magazines I would use to buy for it, included pages teaching how to program in BASIC (something gaming magazines don't foster these days). The language was simple and accessible enough for me and it drew me in.

    A more deep explanation -- which overlaps with the previous one. I doesn't replace it -- is that computer programing has been always seen by me as a creative endeavor. One of my biggest regrets is that I have 0 skill for the arts. While I love everything art related and am very sensitive to it, I lack the ability to draw, sing, compose, film, photograph. I'm incredibly limited in this regard. Yet, works of art have a profound emotional impact on me. I adore art. It always made me sad and frustrated the fact I can't draw or paint, for instance. Computer programming has been the only area where I was able to exercise my creativity and feel I construct something out of nothing. This, I feel, has been not necessarily what drove me into computer programming in the first place, but what made me stick to it all my life.
    Last edited by Mario F.; 07-23-2010 at 03:36 PM.
    Originally Posted by brewbuck:
    Reimplementing a large system in another language to get a 25% performance boost is nonsense. It would be cheaper to just get a computer which is 25% faster.

  4. #4
    Registered User rogster001's Avatar
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    ostras

    hey mario, my -ostras- comment was not for you, that was just timing, and i am pleased you replied as was interested to hear your view particularly... amongs others..
    Last edited by rogster001; 07-23-2010 at 03:43 PM.
    Thought for the day:
    "Are you sure your sanity chip is fully screwed in sir?" (Kryten)
    FLTK: "The most fun you can have with your clothes on."

    Stroustrup:
    "If I had thought of it and had some marketing sense every computer and just about any gadget would have had a little 'C++ Inside' sticker on it'"

  5. #5
    Registered User rogster001's Avatar
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    basic is as basic does

    i too remember the spectrum days, endless hours copying code verbatim from magazines only to be told i had missed a comma out, o the pain! then i met matthew smith, writer of a famous old game, and from my part of world, my mind boggles now at how he created those games in machine code on that platform
    Thought for the day:
    "Are you sure your sanity chip is fully screwed in sir?" (Kryten)
    FLTK: "The most fun you can have with your clothes on."

    Stroustrup:
    "If I had thought of it and had some marketing sense every computer and just about any gadget would have had a little 'C++ Inside' sticker on it'"

  6. #6
    Registered User rogster001's Avatar
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    -creative- is that not the beauty of it? in one of the eTutorials this forum sends it expounds that very idea- you can build machines that will never hurt anyone if they fall apart,- well maybe if u keep the machines at home!
    Last edited by rogster001; 07-23-2010 at 04:25 PM.
    Thought for the day:
    "Are you sure your sanity chip is fully screwed in sir?" (Kryten)
    FLTK: "The most fun you can have with your clothes on."

    Stroustrup:
    "If I had thought of it and had some marketing sense every computer and just about any gadget would have had a little 'C++ Inside' sticker on it'"

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    I kept having cool ideas for programs that nobody had made yet. So I made them for myself.

    Always been a geek, originally more of a science geek, then later an engineering/programming geek.
    You ever try a pink golf ball, Wally? Why, the wind shear on a pink ball alone can take the head clean off a 90 pound midget at 300 yards.

  8. #8

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    I currently hate programming. Right now, I'm just do it for a five letter word for freedom.
    I'm not immature, I'm refined in the opposite direction.

  9. #9
    (?<!re)tired Mario F.'s Avatar
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    I think we are in the same boat, Bob. I'm curious if you mean what you hate about programming isn't actually programming (which you do love if not as a profession), but doing it for a life. Is that it?

    Because that's how I feel about it. I have trouble coping with professional programming. I can't stand the corporate environment, for one. But mostly I can't stand fixed hours, or having to work in projects I don't want to. I had made a promise to myself some years ago that I would never code again for money. Unfortunately here I am back again at it. Local bookstores aren't a viable business anymore... maybe I should go back to university and get myself some other skill.
    Originally Posted by brewbuck:
    Reimplementing a large system in another language to get a 25% performance boost is nonsense. It would be cheaper to just get a computer which is 25% faster.

  10. #10
    Unregistered User Yarin's Avatar
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    I remember, when I was a bit younger, seeing and playing simple games, and being absolutely dumb-founded as to how an individual could create a world of such "life".

    Because it was games that first intrigued me, that was naturally the first thing I pursued, but at this point in time, while games are cool and all, it's not why I'm in it. It's the unmatched artificial "life" that's the computer. You are your only limit kinda' thing.

  11. #11
    Registered User VirtualAce's Avatar
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    My motivation to learn: Creativity which led to making computer games. If there were no computers I would probably be an artist or a writer. I used to do those very things before entering into computers. I like to think of myself as an artist but moreso now of a technical artist and the medium by which I communicate my art is the computer.

  12. #12
    Registered User jdragyn's Avatar
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    Programming is a great, big puzzle with a dynamic picture. Once you've built the puzzle, it actually does something. I play with other people's finished puzzles (games, web browsers, etc.) and have always been fascinated with the "how" of them putting the puzzles together.

    I became interested in programming after writing my first BASIC program on an Apple II in 4th grade. In 7th grade I was on a mail-order shareware thing, playing games made with curses-like "graphics" and crude CGA 320x200 CMYK or RGYK color graphics, and trying to figure out how they wrote such complex stuff in BASIC, or even later in Pascal when I learned that in high school. Then I got onto a local BBS and learned that the WWIV software was written in this strange language called "C"...

    In an alternate reality, I program for a living and am part of a successful game studio that was recently acquired by Blizzard. Alas, in this reality I had to get a "real" job when the money didn't show up for college and I was woefully unprepared for a programming career.
    C+/- programmer extraordinaire

  13. #13

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    I think we are in the same boat, Bob. I'm curious if you mean what you hate about programming isn't actually programming (which you do love if not as a profession), but doing it for a life. Is that it?
    I meant that it isn't fun doing it professionally, but to be honest I'm just a spoiled brat: I work for a very laid back professional engineer (naval architect) that is doing specialized work for the Navy. I literally told him to 'stop being a lesbian' the other day...he just sighed and said 'allllll right.'

    My motivation to learn: Creativity which led to making computer games. If there were no computers I would probably be an artist or a writer.
    When did Bubba become a hippy? NOBODY TELLS ME ANYTHING!


    In an alternate reality, I program for a living and am part of a successful game studio that was recently acquired by Blizzard. Alas, in this reality I had to get a "real" job when the money didn't show up for college and I was woefully unprepared for a programming career.
    Can't win em all.

    ...great, big puzzle...
    My puzzle's bigger.
    I'm not immature, I'm refined in the opposite direction.

  14. #14
    Registered User VirtualAce's Avatar
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    When did Bubba become a hippy? NOBODY TELLS ME ANYTHING!
    Hehe.

    Calm down, Bob, I'm still the same crass cynical Bubba. If I were an artist or a writer I would definitely not be like the current crop of ones we have now. I'd just be just as crass and cynical as an artist or writer. And the first thing I would do with my royalties is go buy the fastest car I could afford and cruise around in it. Not much different than my current aspirations.

  15. #15
    &TH of undefined behavior Fordy's Avatar
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    I was always a tinkerer as a kid - connecting LEDs and buzzers to batteries, taking apart home appliances and trying to put them back together....not knowing what I was doing and not really having much hope of learning the way schools were back then (maybe now too ?)

    I ended up getting a pretty good career in something non-tech but still programmed in my spare time (C/C++, ASM, etc). This was done to "scratch the same itch" as my tinkering phase as a kid

    Fast forward to my early 30s and I started to spend less and less time coding and more time on my career, but I found I still needed an outlet for my curiosity and something to do to take me away from thinking of work. So I'm back messing with code dreaming up ideas to earn more doing the things I enjoy

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