I did projects I thought were fun. But I finished them.
I found work by running into somebody who needed programming done. I was at work at a garage changing oil on cars for the summer. A guy came in, we started talking. Turns out he was a bookkeeper who had just bought a computer and was looking for somebody to program it.
I don't think there was more than a year between when I started playing with computers and when I made my first dollar. But everything I did during that time? It was for somebody else to use: games, utilities, whatever.
I ended up writing an accounting system in BASIC for an Apple IIe. Fun times. I made $250 and probably put 100 hours in on it.
Side note: ran into the same guy like 15 years later. After we said our hellos, I thanked him for giving me a chance to break into programming. He told me that he still used the program! Asked me if I could port it to Windows.
So I did. I charged him a lot more the second time around :)
"I did projects I thought were fun. But I finished them"
Key point - it was not "work". Very true.
"I was at work at a garage changing oil on cars for the summer. A guy came in, we started talking. "
Key point - You were social enough to hold random conversations with someone that lead to something. Very opportunistic. That's more important than knowing the best way to code in my opinion (in an entrepreneurial sense I'm not talking about working at google for example).
"I ended up writing an accounting system in BASIC for an Apple IIe. Fun times. I made $250 and probably put 100 hours in on it."
There it is again.
My experience was the same. I taught myself and it was fun (Unix system). I didn't have a particular agenda in learning enjoying it was enough. (I'm not a programmer but can program somewhat but more importantly have made money from being able to program. But I learned because I enjoyed it not because I expected to make money from it.) Back in the day of 1 book, maybe 2 if you went to the technical bookstore at a University. Automating things at a company that I started.
I did projects I thought were fun. But I finished them.
I found work by running into somebody who needed programming done. I was at work at a garage changing oil on cars for the summer. A guy came in, we started talking. Turns out he was a bookkeeper who had just bought a computer and was looking for somebody to program it.
I don't think there was more than a year between when I started playing with computers and when I made my first dollar. But everything I did during that time? It was for somebody else to use: games, utilities, whatever.
I ended up writing an accounting system in BASIC for an Apple IIe. Fun times. I made $250 and probably put 100 hours in on it.
Side note: ran into the same guy like 15 years later. After we said our hellos, I thanked him for giving me a chance to break into programming. He told me that he still used the program! Asked me if I could port it to Windows.
So I did. I charged him a lot more the second time around :)
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