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Comment by kbr | Hacker News Reader

Woah! Did not expect this to be here. I'm the 13-year-old who tweeted this out, and I really love programming. I like experimenting and creating open source projects. I'm interested in the web, servers, systems, and AI. Some of my most recent projects are:

Moon - UI library

Wing - CSS framework

Wade - 1kb JS Search Library

Slash - hash function in Assembly

You can find them on my Github[1]. I usually don't like stating my age as I love the feedback I get if you treat me as if I was an adult. People usually just compliment me after they see my age, but I'd honestly rather have some nice feedback and criticism.

I'd be glad to answer any questions :)

[1] https://github.com/kbrsh

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Hey.. i'm 42 now, But I was also programming at 13 (at that time we were trying to convince people that computers could be useful, and teachers to allow us to be in the computer lab).

A few things I picked up over the years: Keep going, don't get too into any one technology / keep moving, expect to continue learning forever, keep your body healthy (it's not just there to carry around your brain), avoid bad habits that start to emerge early (100x red-bull ++ etc). The brain requires a LOT of energy, feed it with respect

Intelligence = Speed of the car | Smart = Good at driving it | Wisdom = Where to drive.

Bye! Good luck!

Awesome! Thank you so much for the tips, I'll definitely keep these in mind.

In a similar vein: If you need to use a tool (software or other wise), and you might use it more than once, take the time to learn it right. This will slow you down in the beginning, but it pays off in productivity later on.

loved your quote.

> Intelligence = Speed of the car | Smart = Good at driving it | Wisdom = Where to drive.

I concur. Poetic and succinct.

Really impressive stuff, so here's some unsolicited career advice. You may get some internship offers if this post gets enough attention. They can teach you a lot, but since you seem to be able to learn on your own you should consider staying solo and continuing to market yourself with open-source projects. That said, if you get an invite from Google, that's a different story.

Also, at 13 you probably have the time to do lots of projects. You won't have nearly this much time when you need to feed yourself. Enjoy it!

This. A thousand times.

For me, and I suspect many (if not most) others, side projects have made all the difference. College was great, but the fact that being a student "gave me permission" to work on side projects really made me get my hands dirty. I only wish I'd started when I was 13. Keep on keepin' on!

13 yr olds don't eat?

Had to read this post several times to realize 'lot' was not 'Iot'

Kabir, you've instilled some instincts about design in 13 years that some people never figure out. How did you do that? How old were you when you started programming, what did you do? Just fascinated in how you've done it.

Oh, and don't forget to enjoy being young. You only get to be a teenager once! You've got a long time to be able to wow people, don't owe anything to anyone.

Thank you so much! I started programming basic HTML when I was about 8 years old. After that, I pretty much just started making websites, and when I didn't know how to do something, I just looked it up or asked my parents to help me fix it. With that I've been able to learn a lot. Progressing from HTML to CSS, Javascript, Node, and now into Python and C.

I definitely will enjoy being young :)

I program in my free time, when I'm not playing soccer, doing homework, snowboarding, or playing guitar.

Are your parents programmers? If so, are they keen for you to go down this path?

Nice array of hobbies there, and I hope you keep some of that up as well as programming.

I'd comment on your actual work, but I'm one of the non-tech folks that are sitting here reading HN. Reading this stuff helps my artwork's creativity, oddly enough, and I'm guessing for some it works the other way around as well.

Any reason why you created a new set of accounts on Twitter/GitHub? https://github.com/KingPixil

In the Moon.js Repository [1], it said you've been developing Moon.js since late 2015. So that means you've been building it since 11 years old? That's really cool! I want to hear your stories sometimes. But more importantly, keep making awesome things!

[1] https://github.com/kbrsh/moon

I love the way you keep things really simple and to the point. It's actually great for marketing ( the hard part) and gaining attention for your projects ( eg. They'll read what you write).

Your article about ML [1] seems pretty good so far. Any plans on finishing it?

[1]: https://www.reddit.com/r/Drugs/comments/6xi2jj/whats_your_dr...

Haha I think your link is wrong ;)

I do have plans on finishing it, but I have a lot of projects right now. I'm trying to get Moon v1 out, working on my OS, Slash, and some other new projects. If you have any recommendations for what the code samples should be on, I'd be glad to try and write it based on that.

> Haha I think your link is wrong ;)

Whoops lol. That's what I get for not double-checking that I pasted correctly hehe.

LOL

If I could really recommend anything, I would say to stop doctoring your commits for the appearance that you code /every single day/.

You don't have to look like a super programmer to convince everyone that you're smart, you are smart as hell already.

Haha if you look at my recent commits (maybe 1-2 a day), you'll see that I've been putting less effort into the amount of commits, and more effort into the quality of them. I think a year ago I was focused more on getting that graph to look good.

Back, when I was learning (I was 15 at the time) we didn't even have internet access at home, so you had to learn by downloading stuff in school, put it in a bunch of diskettes, pray none of them borked before getting home and then read for hours looking for what you needed to know. It was awesome, haha!

Now you kiddos have the internet and Github. Lucky whipper snappers! <screams at cloud>

Joking aside, great job! What other technologies outside of the JS stack are you looking into learning?

Haha yeah, this generation is extremely lucky :)

Other than JS, I love Python for AI, and C/Assembly for systems (I'm writing an OS). Check out my Github! It has most of my projects.

Awesome stuff! Had a lot of questions hope you don't mind am father to a few boys who love legos and have just gotten into logic gaming.

How long have you been programming?

What was your early exposure like? Which language tools, legos, games, etc?

Did you have a mentor or self learning? Anyone else in your family programs?

Does academia suffer as a consequence? (It did for me)

I was self taught at 13 (GWBasic on a Commodore PC10) but had very little mentoring and no internet access which limited my trajectory.

Thanks for asking!

1. I've been programming since I was 8.

2. I started out with HTML, then slowly moved into CSS, Javascript, Python, C, and Assembly.

3. I am completely self-taught, a few people in my family program but are in different fields than what I am interested in.

4. I wouldn't say that it suffers, but it is definitely hard to keep up with both. I always keep school as my first priority when it comes to these types of things, and most of my projects are done over break or the weekend.

Awesome! The internet is extremely helpful and you can learn pretty much anything you put your mind to, and it's never too late to start :)

It's wise to appreciate those people in your family who program and give them credit, just for the fact that they exposed you to programming. I know many who grew up with parents which can't even read, let alone have more than one member in the family with a certain level of education. That said, keep up the good work!

Haha yeah, most of the credit goes to my dad. He's a Java programmer. On the other hand, I'm more interested in web development, web design, servers, and systems.

Dude, you're incredible!

Don't worry too much about what to do next. Just let your curiosity guide you. You've got a bright future ahead.

"Once you’ve followed your curiosity to several different tributaries, those tributaries will converge. Then, you’re completely, utterly, untouchable."

From a good read on how curiosity may guide you: https://medium.com/the-mission/make-the-pursuit-of-curiosity...

You have tremendous insight and determination. Good job and btw, love Wade!

I am 40 plus, and started coding at the age of 10 on a Timex 2068 (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timex_Sinclair_2068).

Keep being motivated, curious about all kinds of problems, learn the past of computing and above all, do it for fun!

Just want to say I've been impressed with your code as well as your comments on Hacker News!

Thanks for releasing so many great open source projects!

On your website, you mention you use Crystal for programming on the server. What made you choose Crystal over other languages, and what do you like about it for server-side programming? Thanks :-)

Thanks for asking!

I prefer Crystal because it's a really expressive language (similar to Ruby) but has the advantage of being compiled (like C). I prefer compiled languages for the server because they are usually faster, and can be deployed with a single binary.

I also prefer compiled languages and the simplicity of a single binary for server-side programming.

I really wish fast, compiled, low-memory languages were more widely used on the server. Crystal sounds very promising in this regard :-)

great work kabir, I am 21, I am not half of what you do, you're awesome. do more good. :)

Wow I love Wade ! Can't wait to share with the world how I used iy in a side project.

Keep at it! I wrote my own js framework when I was 14! I like moon!

Beyond impressive, kbr! Congrats on the Moon release.

Keep up the great work!

How did you not expect this to be here if your own account has 26 self promotion submissions? (and nothing else)

Because it was just a tweet. I wasn't expecting a tweet to get to the front page of HN.

> I usually don't like stating my age

So why did you tweet it then?

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