A couple of days ago, I went around the Computer Programming I class that I help teacher assist. I had the fantastic opportunity to introduce one of the students to Python after he told me that he didn’t understand looping. I explained and demonstrated the basic concepts of looping by writing a quick program in Ruby and showing it to him. He thought it was the coolest thing in the world and our discussion eventually led me to telling him about Python and recommending this book for him to get started.
I looked at him and asked him why he wanted to learn programming? “I want to make games” he said. “I want to create new experiences that take people to a new and entire different realm. Making games makes this possible for me.” I also got my start in programming because I wanted to make games. I love games. I love telling stories. Game development, for me, is a perfect medium where I get to tell stories in a different and unique way. Wanting to make games wasn’t the only reason I started programming though. For that we must go back to the beginning. Back to the days when I was the illest little mug with a juicebox on my cul-de-sac.
It all started with a device called the PSP. I remember when I got my first PSP. Yeah you heard me, first. All I did was play Ridge Racer, Syphon Filter, God of War and Daxter religously. Yes I played other games but those were my favorite. This was all back in 06/07. I remember playing Daxter over and over and wondering just how the AI and the game behaved to what I did. It led to late nights on wikipedia and the general internet reading about game development, game engines, game design, etc. I was hooked. I wanted to make my own game for the PSP but I didn’t know how to contact the homies at SCEA for help. I ended up going the “illegitamate” way and rooted my PSP.
“Hacking” the PSP back then was rough. You literally had to take the battery apart, remove some items, solder other items together and whatnot. I went through ~70 PSP batteries before I finally got it rooted. I attribute this event with my love for hacking hardware. I just removed the optical drive in MBP and installed an SSD and it brought back so memories. After rooting the device, I installed what was called CFW (custom firmware) on it.
CFW allowed me to do so much with my PSP. GBA emulators, media players, file systems, etc. It was ridiculous. With the newfound power I had, I began customizing everything to my needs. I wrote custom bootloaders and boot sequences. I wrote a program that allowed me to take UMD data and dump unto a memory card so I didn’t have to carry around UMD’s all the time. I wrote stuff that had to deal with tethering, color optimization, overclocking the processor, UI changes, and a whole bunch of other things I can’t remember. I even ended up writing my own CFW which I still count it as my greatest accomplishment to date.
While going through this phase of hacking and dismembering everything, the want to develop games was always in the back of my mind. So when I was done butchering my poor PSPs to pieces, I starting writing small games that could run on any kind of CFW. I made an arcade space shooter, a clone/cross of DOOM &WOLFENSTEIN, a steampunk themed sidescrolling shooter and some other stuff. I can’t really remember all the things I made since this was 5/6 years ago and I have horrible memory. I do remember listening to dubstep and just making stuff. It was usually Adventure Club and Skrillex on repeat while hacking or building something.
My parents were immensely angry at me, like any parent would, for “destroying” my possessions. My mom realized that she could not control what I did which led to her buying me 5 more PSPs for me to mess around with. My favorite part about what I did was not wondering how it all would affect me in the future but how I could make something better. There’s nothing like working on low level memory optimization so your game can run just bit faster. Back then, I didn’t worry about time constraints, I didn’t worry about homework, I didn’t worry about grades, I didn’t worry whether that girl likes me or likes likes me. It was just me, a computer, numerous PSPs and parts all around.
I am what I build. I am a backpack full of hardware. I’m the games that last as long as rainy days do. I’m the games we create to learn new stuff. I’m errors in the code at 3AM and pizza at 3:15. My friends and I push script. Breaking it down to build it up. What I really love are the days when it’s just me, my bike and my backpack. We are what we build. We are coded, cultural, defining innovation in our own ways. Never ending curiousity. If I understand how it works, anything is possible.
That’s why I want to talk about why we get into programming. I was talking to some students and my conversations went a bit like this.
Me: So why did you guys get into programming?
Student 1: Job opportunities and I want to make cool stuff.
Student 2: I like to make things + I think it would be cool to work at Google.
Student 3 & 4: Money
Me: I’m sorry? What do you mean by “money”?
Student 3: There is a lot of money to be made and I want it all. I want to be as rich as Bill Gates, Steve Jobs and Zuckerberg.
Student 4: Basically what Student 3 said.
To be honest, I was a bit taken back by what the students said. I didn’t get into programming because of money. I got into programming because I love making and building things. There is a big push to get more kids interested in computer science and coding but computer science, programming and coding are not the same thing. Computer science is theory, programming is a bit of a mix of both and coding is more application & IMO rudimentary programming. When I see things online that are geared towards people who don’t know how to code, it talks about all the plentiful jobs in tech and how much you could be making. Programming is hard. If it wasn’t, I wouldn’t have a job. But honestly, is this what we want to display to common folk that tech is about?
“Learn to code and get a good job making lots of money.” It’s a bit disappointing. I’m all for people learning how to write code. You think differently. I write programs, not code. I call myself a progammer, not a hacker nor coder. Rather than tell people, learn to code so you can make lots and lots of money, we should tell people that they should learn to code so they can do things differently. A friend of mine in Nigeria wrote an app for candybar phones that texts farmers the prices of whatever crops they grow so the farmers are always in touch with how the market is. The app isn’t fancy. It’s not Uber for X or Airbnb for X. It’s not on the front page of TechCrunch or Venture Beat but people are using it because it solved a problem that a country where most of the population survives on less than $5 a day has.
We should teach people how learning to code enables us to solve problems in a different and unique way. It’s not about having the coolest and hottest startup. It’s about making a difference in the world we live in. We should be using tech to find new ways to grow crops for the ever-so growing world population. We should use tech to reduce inner city crime. We should use tech to solve diseases like Malaria. I’ve had Malaria 5 times. 3 of those times, the doctors told my parents that I would be dead by morning and they should make plans. I’m still here and still kicking. I’m working on helping reduce Malaria incidents in Africa by making people more aware. Why don’t we use tech to solve the wealth distribution problem? I built an energy tracker for my mom who lives in Nigeria so she could track how much energy she’s using in her home and how she could make her consumption of energy more green. I’m currently working on trying to build low cost solar panels that I can distribute to villages back in Nigeria as a source of electricity for those who don’t have it in tandem with people using generators for electricity.
Why not use big data to reimagine small share farming? Why not develop new algorithms to change seed sourcing for good?
People fail to realize that the things that make the biggest impact in the world are not sexy and are not made with the intention of making lots of money. We fail to communicate that.
The truth of the matter is when we’re really pushing the limits of the human experience, we don’t how it will turn out. If we did, it wouldn’t be what Magellan did. A person who convinced 271 men to risk their lives to explore the edge of the world, where everyone said you’re certainly going to die. Let’s not tell people that learning to code is about jobs or money but about pushing our limits.
Whatever your reason is for getting started in programming, I hope it’s a good one. Even if you got into programming for money, I hope you like programming because if you don’t, you’re going to have a bad time. Everyone has their reasons but please don’t make it about money because when you die, all that green and greed doesn’t follow you home. I’d love to hear why and how you first got started with coding/programming/hacking or whatever you want to call it. Let me know on Twitter (@teenCoder)
So why did you start?
My name is Fisher and I got started programming through breaking things. Little did I know it was only the beginning. Converting passion into projects.
