electronics, etc.

Here is something I got asked by somebody called Keith in a recent comment:

Thanks for making this code available. I am interested in taking a look for hobby purposes. I also have an engineering background, and when I was at University studying mechanical engineering most of the people in my class could not program to save themselves; I found I had a knack for it and now develop engineering software for a living. Where did you learn your programming skills if not in your current line of study?

I initially thought to reply in a private e-mail, but then I thought I’d post here, because I could think of somebody else asking the same thing. Here goes:

I have been programming a lot as a hobby, and for a bit professionally, since being 13 years old or something… and less since basically forever. I wrote a few lines of BASIC at the age of 9 or so I guess. At the age of 12 I made websites. They were ridiculous by (almost) any standards, but I learned a lot. Also I was having fun with CoolBasic shortly after.

Nobody really taught me, but there was a humble C++ course in secondary school and my family didn’t view the hobby as too bad a thing. More importantly I found some programming related communities and some programmer friends on the internet at that time.

Similarly I learned electronics. Found people and friends on IRC who are interested in that stuff and then designed and made stuff together.

• “You think this’d be awesome?”
• “Not sure if we’d be able to pull that off… but sure, let’s try it!”

That. Repeated so many times. Minetest isn’t much of an exception.

And I can program pretty much anything on any platform, unless the problem involves very complex math. Most things don’t.

Making Minetest really isn’t /hugely/ a matter of pure coding skill though; it’s mostly a matter of determination, and now as being largely a community project, it’s much about managing other people’s doings. Also a difficult thing is to take pauses in development of the correct length to not become bored while still keeping other people interested.

// c55