The joy of ordering
I spent the past two nights going nuts with programming languages and programming environments.
It's incredible how open source and high speed internet connections have affected the variety of tools and methods available to people who need the niche of hobbyist programming to satisfy and stimulate.
Code poetry
What's more awesome than that? Having what amounts to the "great works" of contemporary programming to ponder and dilligently comprehend. Much respect to John Carmack for inspiring and instructing far more people than a Starbucks full of uninspired and pompous professors by simply releasing the sources to Quakes I-III. Linux, GNU software, MySQL, and all the other "great works" of the areas of computer software most relevant to the common person (the end-user and the small business owner) give most anyone all they need to do a commendable good for other people.
Radical change in thought pattern; Great benefit:
There was a time when I thought myself less of a programmer whenever I would place great emphasis on Integrated Development Environments and routines written by other programmers. I'd get much enthusiastic for a project, after which I would be taken to far below the reverse of how I felt just before, hounded by my own insecurities and thoughts that "you're above those silly devices", "if you're as smart as you think you are, why do you need these crutches?", and so on. I had a irrational drive to write all my own code without the aid of modern tools, which led me to spend some time learning and meditating on assembler programming. At some point I would come to myself and realize that, firstly, everything I was interested in doing with computer science in the first place could be done with those tools alone, without ANY knowledge of what I was obsessing over knowing in full. Secondly, there is an INCREDIBLE WORLD of interesting conjectures and stimulating experimental inquiry beyond feature-rich IDEs and function libraries. This, yet, was simply the beginning.
It's incredible how open source and high speed internet connections have affected the variety of tools and methods available to people who need the niche of hobbyist programming to satisfy and stimulate.
Code poetry
What's more awesome than that? Having what amounts to the "great works" of contemporary programming to ponder and dilligently comprehend. Much respect to John Carmack for inspiring and instructing far more people than a Starbucks full of uninspired and pompous professors by simply releasing the sources to Quakes I-III. Linux, GNU software, MySQL, and all the other "great works" of the areas of computer software most relevant to the common person (the end-user and the small business owner) give most anyone all they need to do a commendable good for other people.
Radical change in thought pattern; Great benefit:
There was a time when I thought myself less of a programmer whenever I would place great emphasis on Integrated Development Environments and routines written by other programmers. I'd get much enthusiastic for a project, after which I would be taken to far below the reverse of how I felt just before, hounded by my own insecurities and thoughts that "you're above those silly devices", "if you're as smart as you think you are, why do you need these crutches?", and so on. I had a irrational drive to write all my own code without the aid of modern tools, which led me to spend some time learning and meditating on assembler programming. At some point I would come to myself and realize that, firstly, everything I was interested in doing with computer science in the first place could be done with those tools alone, without ANY knowledge of what I was obsessing over knowing in full. Secondly, there is an INCREDIBLE WORLD of interesting conjectures and stimulating experimental inquiry beyond feature-rich IDEs and function libraries. This, yet, was simply the beginning.