Two moments stand out...

the first was building a geocities website to showcase my LEGO mindstorms robots (I'm using that word generously) and emailing "webmasters" about how they aligned text next to images (spoiler: it was CSS "float").

The second was creating an AOL instant messenger bot (again, generous) that was a high schooler's patchwork of different Perl libraries glued together until it could respond to very specific commands like /weather [zip code].

The magic moment for me was when I created a website for my alma mater's food pantry. This was during a time where I was in a CS undergrad program but I didn't know what I wanted to do. After this project I decided to be a front-end software engineer.

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I wrote this related article where I say that there is NO external gatekeeping that makes sens for being a "real" developer.

Like for playing piano, the real test is whether you are ready to put all the necessary practice

The question is not whether everyone SHOULD learn programming.

The real question is whether YOU really WANT to keep programming for the long term

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I bought my first computer around 1983

I writen my first dual player spaceship arcade game with z80 assembler, used tape recorder as storage device. Every times need to be load assembler, and writen code before do any improvement on my program. Before execute good to save, I remember the voice of binary datas.

But the magic moment which is lead me to be developer is around 1977 when I saw first start wars movie as 8 years old boy. After movie I created startegy game from paper. Smaller spaceship is 1x1 cm, galaxi is around 1m2 board - also from paper. Really easy rules turn based "galaxy war" was my first "project". Maybe somtimes I will recreate that game online version.

Back in 2008 (I was 12yrs old), I use to play a lot of online games, I was curious about how online games were made and I investigated a lot, then I started creating my own game, first with JavaScript, then I was programming in java and c#, by 2012 I started downloading and decompiling SWF of online games, to change the server URL in the client files, pointing to my localhost and then started creating a server emulator.

After a while I found myself and some friends in an online community, investigating how to found exploits in the Diffie–Hellman protocol to generate encryption signature generation for RSA (we nailed it), and I started intercepting packages via a proxy program, so we can now create accurate server emulators for online games with encryption.

Then I used to use my free time creating and securing servers from attackers (like I used to be lol).

I was trying to find myself and my purpose..... i had no idea what career path i wanted in life. till i went for a computer training at a cyber cafe. i was really interested and decided to study computer science in college... still in college and now i'm a junior developer. It was the best decision i ever made.

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A magic moment for me was after damaging a laptop I had in my backpack after taking a fall. The laptop had a touch screen which had become cracked. The damaged screen thought it was receiving touch inputs along the cracks, which made the cursor snap over to it.

At the time, I didn't have much money so I wanted to avoid repairs. The laptop had a Linux distro installed on it so I did some research and wrote a script which would disable the touch screen when the laptop would start. Writing that script made it so I didn't have to get a screen replacement. That's when I realized just how useful coding can be as a skill.

My journey to becoming a developer wasn't mapped out. In fact, it came to fruition organically from my experience as a Blogger and SEO expert. Initially, my prime focus was content creation and keyword optimization. As I delved deeper, I began recognizing the power of data-driven decision-making in optimizing the user experience.

I was already proficient in analyzing data, constructing SEO strategies, and following Google's ever-changing algorithms to keep my blog up to date. Yet, the more I explored, the more I was drawn towards the complex world of development. I started to learn about coding languages, frontend and backend development, and the intricate balance of form and function on the web. I invested in self-paced learning courses, attended seminars, and followed industry leaders to keep abreast of the latest technological advancements.

The magic moment? It arrived when I manually corrected a coding error that had been hindering the SEO of my blog. The thrill of having directly improved the functionality and thus the performance of my site was unparalleled. I knew then that I wasn't just a blogger or an SEO expert anymore. I was a developer in the making, combining these fields to create a holistic digital strategy. My journey was unconventional, but it's been rewarding and transformative, igniting a passion for tech I never knew I possessed.

When I was a kid, my dad had an 8086 that he built himself. Monochrome AASCI screen, giant floppy disk, DOS shell, the works. I made do playing Pac-Man in a maze made of # characters, Pac-Man made of alternating < and - characters, etc. When the Commodore 64 came out and some of my friends got them, I asked my dad if I could get one too. His response was to build a colour graphics card and two simple joysticks, and then tell me that if I wanted to play games I would have to design and write them myself. I actually hated computers for a long time after that, lol.

Fast-forward to my early married life. I was working as a prepress designer for a local printing company, and at home I would surf the net, which at the time was very simple. Then Netscape Navigator version 2 came out, and they introduced table cells with background images, and JavaScript, and I started to get excited at what I was seeing. I started noodling at home on little experiments, and the IDE I was learning on at the time was by the original maker of ColdFusion, which introduced me to the concept of server-side programming.

I was hooked after that. And it seemed like my early childhood introduction to the concepts of software design paid off. I wrote a little intranet app for the printing company to digitize some of their processes, which was a big hit, and when finally the company was acquired and everybody was laid off, I chose to take the leap and start applying for work as a web developer. I’ve been at it ever since.

and the 'computer programmer' module my father bought.

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This started me on the path (probably around 1981):

And this gave me a turbo boost in 1983:

That moment never occurred. I just left a programmer.

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Could you at least try to have a unique thought?

The magic moment for me was when my dad showed me how to ask the computer to count to a million and beep. It blew my little kiddo mind when it beeped just a few seconds later.

I love all these stories🦀 keep em coming!