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Comment by tlrobinson | Hacker News Reader

Funny she mentions LEGO, I credit my desire to become an engineer/programmer to my childhood obsesession with LEGO. Apparently it's a cliche?

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Well I'm supporting that cliche too. When I was a kid I took over the spare bedroom with LEGO trains and cities. I spent hours obsessively building, sort of how I write code now. Just hearing her one mention of LEGO made me want to get the blocks out and play.

I just did get my Lego blocks out to start playing!

That's the best thing about having a nephew, the Legos.

I used Construx. Y'all are a bunch of rich kids.

It's the other way around, some kids just build the thing on the box and play with it as it is, and some kids build, tear down, build something else, tear it down, etc.

The latter group is more likely to become some sort of engineer, but I would guess it's a personality trait that expresses itself through Lego in an early age.

No, not really - that's not what cliche means. A cliche is an idea that's presented so much that its originality is lost. Lots of people saying they became interested in programming because of a simple programming language designed to teach kids means it was a success.

Huh? I think you're confusing LEGO [1] with LOGO [2].

[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lego

[2] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Logo_(programming_language)

While it might be a liberal use of the word "cliché" I think it applies: I assumed I was fairly unique in recognizing LEGO as an influence on my career choice, but in fact it's common enough among programmers that this woman cites her lack of LEGO experience as an example of why she isn't a programmer.

Yup, I confused the two. But I still think it's a misuse of the word cliche to characterize a common life-experience as one. It's a word best suited to creative attempts.

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