Getting Back Into Coding

A Long Time Ago…

I wish I had pictures of me coding in my bedroom under my bunk bed when I was 12. I don’t know when exactly I got into it, but I had so much fun making terminal programs that had passwords. And you had to enter the password to… well to nothing really but I didn’t care, I was 12. I was using the language B.A.S.I.C., which is a little confusing to mention in passing. Eventually I figured out that this is how video games are made, and I wanted to make my own world so badly. I got a book on Visual Basic and got to work. I didn’t get very far however. My grandma even got me a laptop just to help me work towards my goals, but I really had no direction. Was I even supposed to be learning this language?
I soon discovered C++ was the preferred language in the video game industry, and I had no idea what that was. I did a few google searches and got so overwhelmed I effectively gave up on the idea, knowing I had very little interest in going to school, and not really knowing what to look for to learn about this new world.

When I turned 18 I got a job in a machine shop, and quickly grew to love metal working. I would go on to work in a shop building farm equipment that I hated so much it would drive me to sell all of my stuff and try to go to school. My very first 4×4, and my very first bike were a little hard to part with, but it was for the better

So I went to school, and I absolutely loved it. I took communications classes, psychology, and anthropology, and got straight A’s. I didn’t know I’d been missing out on this much fun the whole time. But I missed having a project. I soon got bored with school (not unlike most things I do >.<) and I wanted money to spend again.

I was doing some work with Recycled Toyotas for fun, and working on his now legendary truck “The Red Dragon” along with an Ultra4 car that Epic Addictions was building in the same shop. I had a lot of fun there, and ended up getting a job at another machine shop. Here I would learn much of what I know about metal working in just a few months, at which point I would be fired for having a bad attitude.
I guess working a 12 hour Sunday, leaving my girlfriend at the airport, and ditching my weeks worth of homework was typical behavior here. :shrug: I learned things I will never forget at that shop, and while they are workaholics, I will always respect them for their drive and skills.
I would also build a debt with snap-on, as well as the parts I used to fix my E30 (see the E30 post for some details here), which I am working off to this day.

I got a job at China Peak and snowboarded for what felt like a year, but I think was closer to six months, and soon after would go on to start my first company: DroneHaus.
DroneHaus is mentioned briefly in my drones post over here, and I don’t mean to dive into our success and mistakes in this post but soon after I would finally work at Keiser Co. I spent almost 5 years here, and came to the conclusion that I was Tired of metal work, or just making things in general. It was a challenge for my brain any longer, almost everything I could imagine making was within reach and I was bored.

And so it would begin again…

And then… COVID. I am an avid dancer, and after a recent break up I’d taken up some other social hobbies, including Bicycle Polo (omg here go look at my bike >.< :’D). But all that was gone in an instant. I had just had knee surgery on Mar 15, the first day of lockdown, and when I returned to work all of my carpet walking co workers were at home. For the next year it was just my one coworker and I working on projects that remote engineers sent us. And every day I would go home.
Since projects are an addiction I built a few things, and went to some drift events eventually to record cars. But I also had a video game idea that completely took my breath away: it’s basically the Oasis… but open source. And I wrote down a notebooks worth of concepts for it. I knew I was going to need to learn to code if I wanted to even consider this thing a reality, and I knew exactly where I needed to go: C++.

Three months later I had purchased multiple classes and read, and re-read multiple websites and tutorials on how C++ works. As well as get really frustrated with some concepts I didn’t understand, and would go on to focus on Assembly language, which I’ll talk about more and more in my Eater computer post(s).

I was getting more and more frustrated every day as I went to work. I was bored for 8.5 hours every day, assuming I didn’t have to put in overtime. My pay wasn’t great, and my dreams seemed so far out of reach I felt hopeless. I wanted to get a job coding, but I had no formal education and no real experience in the field for that matter. I knew there was the local company Bitwise, and I thought “Maybe they would be willing to take me on”. But quickly dismissed the idea as I wouldn’t do great working on a lower income than I already was. But I asked around anyways, and was directed to classes. The classes were for web development, which I was almost completely disinterested in. But what else was I going to do, just brood?

I took the first class, and built a website for my local dance group Fresno Swing Dance (You should totally check them out, best small town swing dancing group I’ve ever been in).

They kept mentioning apprenticeships, and I was pretty intrigued. In the meantime I was showing up to the study groups and asking lots of questions about computer science that I guess were a bit unexpected. But a handful of people obliged and for two months I dived into the web development side of computer science, and to my surprise; it’s a blast! I had a ton of fun learning about these cool new ways to put pictures on a web browser. It seems lame from the outside. But under the hood, a lot of work goes into making web pages dynamic.
If you’ve ever used a web page that you just didn’t even like, it’s because it’s kind of hard to make something that you do like. There are details you probably take for granted.

During my second class I was offered an apprenticeship. I am still working on learning assembly language almost every morning (although MineCraft has taken a toll on my free time lately), before I get back into C++ and really start getting my feet wet. Patience is hard, but I want this too badly to give up.

I’ve been in my apprenticeship now for 3 months, and we just got word that it will be a total of one year. I really can’t wait to spend so much time working on problem solving every day. I’m working on this blog at work right now, and I could never have imagined being able to say that without worrying about getting in trouble.

I consider myself very lucky, and very well networked, and hope if you’ve read this far that you might reconsider chasing your dreams. Much as I am ready to own my own company again, building the biggest video game known to man, nothing happens all at once. But my goal is in mind and I’m here to stay! 😀

Austin.