Showerthought: I saw a kid at the library trying to fix his game by typing random letters.

He was just mashing the keyboard, convinced he was 'coding' to fix a bug. It made me remember my first time trying to debug a Python script and having no clue where to even start. Anyone else have a funny 'first code' story?

4 comments

4 Comments

abbyf7924d ago

Yeah that thing about copying code from a book is spot on lol. It's like we all go through a phase where we think the symbols themselves have power, like a magic spell. I see it now with people who don't understand tech just mashing buttons or repeating phrases they heard, hoping it'll fix things. It's that same human instinct to try and control something complex by just doing something, even if it's random.

emma_jones24d ago

Oh, that reminds me of a story I read online once. A guy said his first "program" was just copying pages of code from a library book into Notepad, letter for letter. He had no idea what any of it did, but he was so proud when he saved the file. He thought the act of typing it was the same as making it work. It's that same magical thinking, like the kid at the library. We all start somewhere, believing there's a secret button or the right words to make the magic happen.

david13424d ago

Totally get that. Reminds me of trying to make "potions" as a kid by mixing random bathroom stuff, convinced the right combo would do something cool.

parker_hall510d ago

That story about the guy copying code into Notepad is perfect. It makes me think of my little cousin who used to "hack" in movies by just smacking the keyboard really fast. He thought any furious typing would make a green screen pop up with secret data. It's the same idea, that the performance of the action is what makes it real, not the logic behind it.