Comment by 256_ | Hacker News Reader

Comment by 256_ | Hacker News Reader

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I can't even imagine what it's like now, but Roblox is how I first learned programming when I was 11. This was well over a decade ago.

Roblox (talking in past tense; not sure how much of this is still true) allowed you to create "Places", which were basically 3D interactive universes that consisted of a few primitive parts (rect. prisms, cylinders, etc.) arranged and connected to each other, as larger solid objects, or with hinges. It was, in other words, a multi-player physics sanbox. Also, the use of the word "place" instead of "game" is interesting to note; as a child, it felt like they could really be anything, with no particular expectations.

I don't remember when Lua scripting was added - I think it was around 2008-2009 or somethng - but it allowed you to perform simple event-based programming, registering clicks/deaths/collisions/etc and manipulating the game world. As a child I saw this as a form of magic. What would otherwise be a physics sandbox with inanimate objects interacting in a strictly mechanistic fashion became one in which anything could happen. You know, magic. Maybe that sounds stupid, but that was my thinking.

So I became a programmer because I wanted to be a wizard. I am still pursuing this goal. Also, RIP Erik Cassel. His tutorials were one of my first - if not my first - introduction to programming ever. He died too soon.

> So I became a programmer because I wanted to be a wizard.

You may have already found it, but Fred Brooks's little essay on why programming is fun has always resonated with me [0]:

> The programmer, like the poet, works only slightly removed from pure thought-stuff. He builds his castles in the air, from air, creating by the exertion of the imagination. Few media of creation are so flexible, so easy to polish and rework, so readily capable of realizing grand conceptual structures. [...]

> Yet the program construct, unlike the poet’s words, is real in the sense that it moves and works, producing visible outputs separate from the construct itself. It prints results, draws pictures, produces sounds, moves arms. The magic of myth and legend has come true in our time. One types the correct incantation on a keyboard, and a display screen comes to life, showing things that never were nor could be.

[0] http://www.grok2.com/progfun.html

Not the OP, but that was a wonderful read, thanks for sharing.

It follows that, maybe we programmers should see ourselves as working class poets or writers.

Weaving our magic words like wizards casting their spells, with every line written, we watch as our work of fantasy hardens into reality.

Our faithful computer always does our will.

With infinite patience, it takes our every instruction until each one has been precisely executed, down to the last word.

A bit idyllic, true, because there is always the dark side, the bugs. But otherwise, pure magic.

And, nothing wrong with other professions, but, more that 20 years after starting out, I can still remember why I wanted to be a programmer.

>You know, magic

>So I became a programmer because I wanted to be a wizard

that's a classic MIT AI lab idea.

"We'll actually see that Computer so-called-Science actually has a lot in common with magic."[0]

[0] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2Op3QLzMgSY 0:40, and a lot in the SICP textbook

all your rblx info is still true, by the way. there's a lot more you can script with too, including internal and external API integration, inter-game info transfer, transactions, all kinds of stuff.

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