I learned to program in zero period at Wilson High School in Portland, Oregon.
It was a self-taught course but I didn’t have to hide the work—-no one really cared. Not that my parents didn’t care, they were glad I was doing something I enjoyed.
But that no one had any idea how deep I was going into writing code.
The assignments were given once a quarter or so by Veryl Smith. We had far ranging latitude to figure it out on our own and gold plate projects as much as we wanted.
By the time the game of life assignment was due I had added a mouse interface and vga, color display of the cells and grid, all in Pascal.
I often lost points due to things like shadowed naming or other bad patterns.
But that didn’t really matter too much. I made up for it getting “A” grades working as a teacher’s assistant for the attendance office, writing hall passes and absence slips for myself and others as necessary. That was a great hack.
Anyhow, this essay resonates deeply with me. It has good ideas in it.
I learned to program in zero period at Wilson High School in Portland, Oregon.
It was a self-taught course but I didn’t have to hide the work—-no one really cared. Not that my parents didn’t care, they were glad I was doing something I enjoyed.
But that no one had any idea how deep I was going into writing code.
The assignments were given once a quarter or so by Veryl Smith. We had far ranging latitude to figure it out on our own and gold plate projects as much as we wanted.
By the time the game of life assignment was due I had added a mouse interface and vga, color display of the cells and grid, all in Pascal.
I often lost points due to things like shadowed naming or other bad patterns.
But that didn’t really matter too much. I made up for it getting “A” grades working as a teacher’s assistant for the attendance office, writing hall passes and absence slips for myself and others as necessary. That was a great hack.
Anyhow, this essay resonates deeply with me. It has good ideas in it.