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Comment by radlad | Hacker News Reader

I loved it. I bought my first domain when I was 10, intending to create a game like Neopets. I obviously quickly learned I wasn't going to be able to, but I created a fan site, kept hacking at it, and learning. I learned security, etc. By the time I was out of high school, I was recruited by [redacted].

Some of those kids will go on to be decent programmers. And it definitely leaves you with a much more analytic way of thinking, for better or worse.

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>leaves you with a much more analytic way of thinking, for better or worse.

I'm curious why you say "for better or worse"? (Not judging either way - just curious as to your thinking)

Not OP, but I'd like to chime in here. Getting good with computers is often best done by spending a large amount of time on computers. For many of "us" that involved teenage years playing MMORPGs, general programming, IRC, etc.

Despite a certain illusion of sociality involved in these activities, I am of the opinion that they are uniquely anti-social, and thus were in one way or another a deprivation of my childhood.

Sure I now have a much higher earnings potential. But was it worth it? I don't know. And thus I'm in no position to recommend it for anyone else.

Theirs probably a balance in it somewhere. And you can be damned sure if I'm ever a parent I'm going to tread lightly between "my child should learn to program, go to college, etc." and "my child needs to live a happy, normal, life".

That why it's a "for better or for worse" mentality in my opinion. We don't really know which is best do we?

> Despite a certain illusion of sociality involved in these activities, I am of the opinion that they are uniquely anti-social

Makes me wonder about my 'choices'- did my anti-social tendencies arise from my interest in programming (and math, etc.), or did it drive me to them?

I think about the same thing quite a lot. I remember having anti-social tendencies from a really young age. No idea why, I was just rarely interested in other kids. So I spent a lot of time dicking around with my computer. That paid off, but I got a little better with social skills later on after working at it. I always wonder how my life would be different if I didn't have all the computer escapism and worked on social skills earlier.

This is exactly my education path. The great thing was my MMO opened up both the client and server for development so I learned to program using GScript. God awful language in hindsight but addictive. I eventually spent more time developing for the game than I did playing it. That was god awful too since you had to pay to develop content for their game!

I'm the opposite. Got all my social out the way early and am eager to be anti-social and increase my earnings potential. Greener grass theory.

This is exactly what I was getting at, thanks. :)

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