> I think Windows taking over the world from 1995 to 2008 has absurdly destroyed lot of hacker interest in computing devices.
I'm 32, so not really falling into your description when it comes to age, but if it weren't for Linux I wouldn't be here today writing code for a living. I was around your age and I was almost illiterate when it came to programming (but very good at maths and all), until I installed a Mandrake Linux distribution on my PC and then discovered Python.
Like you said, even having access to a decent computer terminal can make a huge difference, the difference between just typing "python" and having access to its REPL and on the other hand struggling to set and export some crazy PATHs in DOS (and to this day I'm sure I discovered Copy/Paste into the DOS terminal by mistake).
It's good that Bill Gates does the things he does now and I understand why people would look up to him, but we should also think of the huge opportunity costs that Microsoft's policies imposed on the rest of the world.
I'm 32, so not really falling into your description when it comes to age, but if it weren't for Linux I wouldn't be here today writing code for a living. I was around your age and I was almost illiterate when it came to programming (but very good at maths and all), until I installed a Mandrake Linux distribution on my PC and then discovered Python.
Like you said, even having access to a decent computer terminal can make a huge difference, the difference between just typing "python" and having access to its REPL and on the other hand struggling to set and export some crazy PATHs in DOS (and to this day I'm sure I discovered Copy/Paste into the DOS terminal by mistake).
It's good that Bill Gates does the things he does now and I understand why people would look up to him, but we should also think of the huge opportunity costs that Microsoft's policies imposed on the rest of the world.
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