

Interview with Bob Nystrom - GarethX
http://blog.fogcreek.com/dev-life-interview-with-robert-nystrom

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ahoge
> _I got into programming before the web and was mostly self-taught,[...]. My
> biggest challenge was finding enough information._

I had the same problem. I had one tiny pocket book with less than 150 pages
and Turbo C's built-in help system which was basically just trimmed down API
docs. A list of header files which lead to a list of functions which lead to a
short 1-2 sentence description.

But I still had a lot of fun.

I agree that the first language isn't that important, if you switch to
something else shortly thereafter. However, I think it's a bit problematic if
you keep using this one language exclusively for a couple of years.

Maybe BASIC wasn't such a bad idea. No one wants to stick with that and it's
also rarely used in production. If you start with something like BASIC, you're
forced to switch.

~~~
zaphar
Same here, Self-Taught before the internet. Started with Basic, Flirted with C
and Pascal but the lack of resources led to frustration and frequent giving
up.

Managed to stick it out long enough to turn it into a career though.

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paines
Everything about Bob is soo interesting and inspiring IMHO. Please more!
Thanks for sharing.

