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His alias is "Javascripter"... he wants to be the "best in the world"... he's 12 years old... just the overall wording taunts me with a hint of spam.

I don't think a 12 yr old would have that enthusiasm for pure javascript.. would definitely ask about HTML (if he knows html he knows how to find out about javascript?)...

what 12 year old knows about YC.news?

Seriously... I'm calling this one out... spam.

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Well, I assume you really mean "troll" rather than "spam", and given the earnest and constructive answers he's gotten so far, I'd say that if he's a troll he's the least successful one ever :-).

When I was 14 (1995), I'd been doing shoddy programming for a couple years and read an article in Newsweek about genetic algorithms and somewhat naïvely decided to look up the guy interviewed (on compuserve) and drop him a mail (David E. Goldberg). He went to the trouble to not only answer me, but run off a huge packet of copies of articles and snail-mailed them to me. That seriously changed my life. That's when I learned what computer science really was. Answering questions like this is important, in my opinion, even if you get duped once in a while.

Whoa, just found it again: http://www.newsweek.com/id/103827/output/print

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