Oh don't be sad. I'm overdramatizing, there's really no way to be sure that I would have continued programming if I had got past that hurdle. Or I might even not have enjoyed it. Maybe I needed to see the ugliness of economics very closely before I could really appreciate the beauty of programming.

Luckily the internet bubble came along just at the right moment, made it really easy to become a programmer on the job and now everything is fine.