How I Started Programming

Some of the timeline is a bit fuzzy now, and some of these things were in parallel.

I started coding BASIC with smallBASIC. I created a bunch of useless things, including a snake clone with help from a friend.

Then I played around with Game Maker. After pushing the limits of the drag & drop interface, I learned the more powerful GML (Game Maker Language, similar to Javascript.)

I joined a lego robotics team (the program is called FLL), and programmed the lego robot (called an NXT) using a graphical programming language. Unfortunately, the FLL rules did not allow us to use anything that was much better.

I heard about a C-like programming language for the NXT, and I wrote a handful of modules. I wrote a high score saving module, an on-screen keyboard module, a menu module, and more. I also wrote a bunch of games, including Tetris, Snake, Simon, Bop It, and Tic Tac Toe.

My friend, Josh, suggested that I learn an interpreted language. He also started meeting with people he knew that wanted to become developers, and I attended the meetings.

I learned javascript, using mainly node.js and browserify. I got started with learnyounode I also learned about unit tests, mysql, text parsing, and more from the weekly meetings. In the group, we developed a few things, and he did code review and sometimes specs.

Since then, I've created various projects for myself.

So yeah, that's how I got started.