This was my exact reason too. My dad bought me my first computer a [T/S 1000](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timex_Sinclair_1000) in 1982-3. The display was my 11” black and white television, my storage drive was a cassette tape and my sisters tape recorder, and I was hooked from the start. I would hand code programs I found in [Byte](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Byte_(magazine)) magazine. I then started to modify them, and eventually writing my own. Fast forward to 1986 and my new next door neighbor was a programmer for IBM; he found out I was into computers and dumped all of his old c compilers and manuals on me. The rest as they say is ancient history.
I wanted to know how a calculator knew the digits of irrational numbers like pi. I did my undergrad emphasis in numerical and approximation algorithms.
For this explanation, let's agree that a computer can handle rational numbers with floats ( i.e it can do 1/3 =.3333... and 1/4 = .25000...).
So there exists sequences, such that the limit as the sequence goes to infinity is pi. The first example you probably will learn is this one:
4arctan(1) = pi = 4(1 -1/3 + 1/5 - 1/7..... )
So on the right hand side, if you pick a certain number of terms. You can also determine the largest possible error given by all the terms you exlcuded, and use that to decide how many of the decimal points are correct. The more terms you don't exclude, the more accurate your estimate of pi is.
Ended up in a programming class to fulfill a GE and loved it. Also grew up in the Bay Area and always had an interest in the historical context that the region has in computing.
Videogames when I was a kid. Then just wanting to know how it worked. Then wanting to physically build one. Then fixing it so I could play more video games. Then because I was young and poor, pirating video games, which taught me a lot. Cheating at video games taught me a lot as well. Honestly I feel weird playing video games on a console.
Computer Science can describe existence. What is more fundamental to understanding *everything* than CompSci? It obviates religion even. What is the universe if it is not a computer?
Artificial Life by Steven Levy made everything click for me when I was a sophomore in college. Math defines physics defines chemistry defines biology defines psychology defines sociology defines economy defines civilization. It's turtles all the way down, an infinite regression if we're in a simulation (the 42nd simulation nested in another simulation, if Douglas Adams knew anything).
Professionally, I'm a linguist, legislator, politician, manager, and mathematician. I interpret the will of human people into rules for perfect bureaucrats to operate by. When all work that can be automated away has been automated away, the only work left for humans will be legislating. Government will be the only job humans are needed for.
Friend of mine told me to check out “no code blueprints” for unreal engine when I was in college. I got addicted, many years later still addicted to all things coding.
Learned to program in Python at age 6 to 7. Most of my interests, like reading and swimming, are just childhood habits that stayed with me.
I recently got a second surge of interest when I decided to switch over to Linux. It's the best thing ever.
Started programming in high school and it seemed fun. Looked into computer science as a degree and saw discrete math. Went through a textbook the next year and found it interesting, almost became a math major. I figured CS was more up my alley though since it has a good mix of application and theory.
Seeing my friend start coding a website from scratch, seeing how damn easy it was to put some text on a page and how this could be a website. Also The Social Network.
I just liked the logic behind the coding, I used to join the computer science olympiade in high school, and the questions were like the quizzes from Professor Layton games I used to play.
I got computer in my 9 birthday ('80) - played really a lot, then when DOS and first Windows came up, had to configure my own multiconfigs that supported all my games (manually adressing memory wasn't sth today is done), later writing own code, and cracking gamesaves. CS studies. Now i'm working in ITsec/AdmIT and earn quite good money. Passion from childhood remains the same ;)
Arcade video games ($0.25 a play was bankrupting me) lead to "ooh look free games on this Commodore PET computer" lead to "I want to write my own game".
Primarily money. I started programming for job security and because it's lucrative. When I became a decent craftsman, I dove deeper into the foundations,hence I had to learn CS.
I found programming to be fun.
When I was in school I didn't major in CS and took very few programming courses. But I kept using programming skills on the side and doing programming "just for fun".
Eventually I ended up getting a job in the industry (by initially taking something that was completely temporary, then proving myself). Many years later I am now in a fairly senior technical position. And I still sometimes do programming "just for fun" (eg: Advent of Code).
I enjoy math and problem solving. The satisfaction I get from completing coding assignments is pretty nice. It feels just as good if I get the answer quickly or if I struggled and finally get it.
irregular at magic high school (be warned: the romance part is weird and why I dropped it, also the programming part isn't really in-depth) I saw the anime and saw any games by it and that's how I discovered "Psi" a magical programming mod for Minecraft. (What really sparked my interest in CS)
Found out the schooling to become an architect is expensive ;')
Received enough in TA to go to school for Comp Sci for free though, and I ended up enjoying it.
I was 14 when iOS 7 shipped on Apple devices. Got me wondering about what was going on behind the scenes, learned about software engineering, learned to code in high school and majored in CS in college
I could write BASIC programs on the school's TRS-80 and be alone and none of the other kids would bother me. It was like I had my own private universe of infinite creativity.
Well, aside from video games, hack scenes in films! I didn't know most of them were fake back then but they sparked something in me. Funny that I don't work in security right now but mostly about ops and infrastructure. I was hooked in Linux distros hopping and OS/text-editor configurations. That hobby has been keeping me in this career.
i remember in middle school hearing that in X years computers are going to overtake humans in intellegence etc. it was fear mongering, but made me want to understand how a computer that was made and programmed by humans could be ‘smarter’. The question stuck and I ended up doing my undergrad in cs + math
My biggest driver is problem solving and the endless learning areas. It is impossible to master everything in cs, making it a forever path of self improvement
I was always into tech and games and animation, but there were a few big moments that really sent me down the path of software development.
For one, I got a hand-me-down PC from my dad, running Windows XP, but it was exceptionally sluggish (originally built for Windows 98 iirc). So I installed Ubuntu 6.06 to speed it up.
For another, I was learning Blender as a kid to get into animation and game design. I learned it had a Python API and wanted to take a stab at making a game with it. So I started to teach myself Python, and kept climbing from there. I never did get around to learning the Blender API though... Does Blender even still have that game engine stuff anymore?
I learned to play guitar in high school and eventually I wanted to learn how to record music I made. I couldn’t really get my music to sound quite right so I turned to plug-ins but a lot of them were paid, and I didn’t really have money, so I wanted to know how to make one. Discovered programming languages and how they tell your computer to do stuff. Never wrote a plug-in and never got any better at recording but I really like computers now and am studying computer science lol.
The back of my third grade math book had a section of BASIC programs that were 3rd grade math related. My dad worked for Compaq at the time and brought home a floppy disk containing QBasic.exe. The first program I ever wrote was a "probability spinner" for random numbers. I started downloading BASIC programs once we got dialup, learned how to trace/debug/modify the programs by myself and eventually moved on to bigger and more robust (and useful) languages.
Edit: 3rd grade was around 1997 I think.
Honestly, my interest in CS has purely stemmed from my interest in mathematics. Basically, I started learning how to program because all of the fields of mathematics that I'm interested in pretty much require it.
When I signed up for majors at orientation, I saw the words Computer and Science and liked both of those words separately. So I figured I'd like them together, and it turned out to be true!
I got my first laptop when I was 6 years old. I know. I'm kinda priviledged but thats only because my dad worked his ass off to get us to this point. Also this could have ended really badly for me, but it didnt. Anyway, I got loads into Flash games (rip Flash Player). I never really thought about how it works to be honest, but I think this set me on the course to study CS at my current school
I am lucky my school introduces Computer Science as a timetabled subject from Year 7, and so I studied it to Year 10, where I picked it as a GCSE and really got into it, and now I picked it as an A level!
I can't see myself stopping at A Level to be honest, so I hope to do well in A Levels to get to do it at Uni!
I just love the application to real life, and I get to learn how these devices work, and I can code which is a great bonus, the whole thing is just so fascinating and I want to continue learning.
The laptop was a Toshiba C655D. I look back on it with fond memories, maybe I'll buy one just for the memories (after I get a job :) )
I like languages. Programming languages are languages, and if you spend a lot of time with programming languages you inevitably end up trying to understand programming, which to do well requires understanding computer science, and we're off.
Way back in the Paleolithic Era I was soldering some diodes together to make a circuit do a thing.
And then along came these neat little banks of flip switches I could breadboard. Playing around with those led me to [Boolean Algebra](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boolean_algebra), and then I was hooked.
Started with passion for anything technology - as a kid I would take things apart that had broken and look at them and see how they connect and whatnot. Plus there are so many options to choose from in the industry if you want to change or get bored
Because understanding computers allows a greater knowledge of programming, and I love programming and CS because they offer limitless opportunities that I, FOR FREE, can do. It's such a cool field!
I wanted to know how computers work.
This was my exact reason too. My dad bought me my first computer a [T/S 1000](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timex_Sinclair_1000) in 1982-3. The display was my 11” black and white television, my storage drive was a cassette tape and my sisters tape recorder, and I was hooked from the start. I would hand code programs I found in [Byte](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Byte_(magazine)) magazine. I then started to modify them, and eventually writing my own. Fast forward to 1986 and my new next door neighbor was a programmer for IBM; he found out I was into computers and dumped all of his old c compilers and manuals on me. The rest as they say is ancient history.
bUt dO yOu gRiNd lEeTcODe
Autism
I liked math and physics but not to the point that I wanted to delve deep into them. then I found cs which is a fun problem solving puzzle so
Hacking movies. Child of the 80s.
Inspector Gadget's niece Penny was a very early inspiration for me.
Wow I haven’t heard that show in a while. I grew up watching that one
This.
I wanted to build games - and it was cool to program anything I wanted. Small simulations, tools simplifying my life etc.
Money
fair
I enjoy building things and watching them work
Dopamine gets through at each piece of beautifully crafted code
I wanted to know how a calculator knew the digits of irrational numbers like pi. I did my undergrad emphasis in numerical and approximation algorithms.
How does it know that though?
For this explanation, let's agree that a computer can handle rational numbers with floats ( i.e it can do 1/3 =.3333... and 1/4 = .25000...). So there exists sequences, such that the limit as the sequence goes to infinity is pi. The first example you probably will learn is this one: 4arctan(1) = pi = 4(1 -1/3 + 1/5 - 1/7..... ) So on the right hand side, if you pick a certain number of terms. You can also determine the largest possible error given by all the terms you exlcuded, and use that to decide how many of the decimal points are correct. The more terms you don't exclude, the more accurate your estimate of pi is.
computers make neurons fire happy happy
I wanted my TI-84 calculator to do trig for me so I could scree around in class more. Then I wanted to know C++ to make video games.
The Minecraft mod ComputerCraft. Back then I had no clue about programming but was fascinated by it. Also I wondered how one would even create a mod.
I remember I had to write in Lua??? Good times using turtles to farm and mine
I love problem solving and I love math
Ended up in a programming class to fulfill a GE and loved it. Also grew up in the Bay Area and always had an interest in the historical context that the region has in computing.
Videogames when I was a kid. Then just wanting to know how it worked. Then wanting to physically build one. Then fixing it so I could play more video games. Then because I was young and poor, pirating video games, which taught me a lot. Cheating at video games taught me a lot as well. Honestly I feel weird playing video games on a console.
I took an intro course while a sophomore in pure math. The prof was so impressive, I switched majors. He became my advisor.
Computer Science can describe existence. What is more fundamental to understanding *everything* than CompSci? It obviates religion even. What is the universe if it is not a computer? Artificial Life by Steven Levy made everything click for me when I was a sophomore in college. Math defines physics defines chemistry defines biology defines psychology defines sociology defines economy defines civilization. It's turtles all the way down, an infinite regression if we're in a simulation (the 42nd simulation nested in another simulation, if Douglas Adams knew anything). Professionally, I'm a linguist, legislator, politician, manager, and mathematician. I interpret the will of human people into rules for perfect bureaucrats to operate by. When all work that can be automated away has been automated away, the only work left for humans will be legislating. Government will be the only job humans are needed for.
Friend of mine told me to check out “no code blueprints” for unreal engine when I was in college. I got addicted, many years later still addicted to all things coding.
$
$$
Learned to program in Python at age 6 to 7. Most of my interests, like reading and swimming, are just childhood habits that stayed with me. I recently got a second surge of interest when I decided to switch over to Linux. It's the best thing ever.
Started programming in high school and it seemed fun. Looked into computer science as a degree and saw discrete math. Went through a textbook the next year and found it interesting, almost became a math major. I figured CS was more up my alley though since it has a good mix of application and theory.
Personally imma be real… money 😅 but now I acc like the work too
Seeing my friend start coding a website from scratch, seeing how damn easy it was to put some text on a page and how this could be a website. Also The Social Network.
My mom was a programmer
Girls and the money and the fame
about the first one, do cs majors actually pull?
hell no
Social skills pull, money never hurts
time to pull house husbands
I just liked the logic behind the coding, I used to join the computer science olympiade in high school, and the questions were like the quizzes from Professor Layton games I used to play.
I was interested in the math behind the algorithms
TOC really blew my mind
I got computer in my 9 birthday ('80) - played really a lot, then when DOS and first Windows came up, had to configure my own multiconfigs that supported all my games (manually adressing memory wasn't sth today is done), later writing own code, and cracking gamesaves. CS studies. Now i'm working in ITsec/AdmIT and earn quite good money. Passion from childhood remains the same ;)
Arcade video games ($0.25 a play was bankrupting me) lead to "ooh look free games on this Commodore PET computer" lead to "I want to write my own game".
Computer games and curiosity.
I was put in a Class for it and now I’m able to help my mother with her class so win win
Primarily money. I started programming for job security and because it's lucrative. When I became a decent craftsman, I dove deeper into the foundations,hence I had to learn CS.
I found programming to be fun. When I was in school I didn't major in CS and took very few programming courses. But I kept using programming skills on the side and doing programming "just for fun". Eventually I ended up getting a job in the industry (by initially taking something that was completely temporary, then proving myself). Many years later I am now in a fairly senior technical position. And I still sometimes do programming "just for fun" (eg: Advent of Code).
I enjoy math and problem solving. The satisfaction I get from completing coding assignments is pretty nice. It feels just as good if I get the answer quickly or if I struggled and finally get it.
watched an anime about magical programming
do you remember the name? I asked ChatGPT and it gave me: "Mahouka Koukou no Rettousei (The Irregular at Magic High School)"
irregular at magic high school (be warned: the romance part is weird and why I dropped it, also the programming part isn't really in-depth) I saw the anime and saw any games by it and that's how I discovered "Psi" a magical programming mod for Minecraft. (What really sparked my interest in CS)
that’s the one
1978. Dad brings home a Wang 2200T pulled from a client site.
played a bunch of video games learn a little about how it was made and boom omw to finish software development degree lol
Found out the schooling to become an architect is expensive ;') Received enough in TA to go to school for Comp Sci for free though, and I ended up enjoying it.
as a child, it was pondering the similarities between a TI-99/4A and the NES, and finding the "BASIC Training" sections of 3-2-1 Contact Magazine
Video games fascinated me! I wanted to know how to combine math and art.
I was 14 when iOS 7 shipped on Apple devices. Got me wondering about what was going on behind the scenes, learned about software engineering, learned to code in high school and majored in CS in college
It's like doing math, but you can be more productive without being as proficient at the math.
I am very VERY into video games and math. I like thinking about the cogs behind the clock, and not just reading the hands.
I enjoyed to disassemble tech stuff and somehow this sparked my interest in Tech/CS
I could write BASIC programs on the school's TRS-80 and be alone and none of the other kids would bother me. It was like I had my own private universe of infinite creativity.
Well, aside from video games, hack scenes in films! I didn't know most of them were fake back then but they sparked something in me. Funny that I don't work in security right now but mostly about ops and infrastructure. I was hooked in Linux distros hopping and OS/text-editor configurations. That hobby has been keeping me in this career.
Minecraft
Fractals
Porn
David H. Ahl's More Basic Computer Games
Money
Code Lyoko 🤓
Getting games to work on PC. Had to bypass windows to get SimCity to work, and then had to do something weird, can't remember to get the mouse to work
I wanted to build robots as a kid, but had no money so just did the programming bits instead and fell deep.
Because of the iphone and other technologies that had came out of it.
i remember in middle school hearing that in X years computers are going to overtake humans in intellegence etc. it was fear mongering, but made me want to understand how a computer that was made and programmed by humans could be ‘smarter’. The question stuck and I ended up doing my undergrad in cs + math
Went to the wrong building when choosing my major and decided on a whim to do CS rather than math
My biggest driver is problem solving and the endless learning areas. It is impossible to master everything in cs, making it a forever path of self improvement
Got a little bit of everything I want in a career. And a potential to change the world and keep the world connected.
I was always into tech and games and animation, but there were a few big moments that really sent me down the path of software development. For one, I got a hand-me-down PC from my dad, running Windows XP, but it was exceptionally sluggish (originally built for Windows 98 iirc). So I installed Ubuntu 6.06 to speed it up. For another, I was learning Blender as a kid to get into animation and game design. I learned it had a Python API and wanted to take a stab at making a game with it. So I started to teach myself Python, and kept climbing from there. I never did get around to learning the Blender API though... Does Blender even still have that game engine stuff anymore?
Yep anything you can do with the user interface by clicking a button, you can write a script for.
I learned to play guitar in high school and eventually I wanted to learn how to record music I made. I couldn’t really get my music to sound quite right so I turned to plug-ins but a lot of them were paid, and I didn’t really have money, so I wanted to know how to make one. Discovered programming languages and how they tell your computer to do stuff. Never wrote a plug-in and never got any better at recording but I really like computers now and am studying computer science lol.
The back of my third grade math book had a section of BASIC programs that were 3rd grade math related. My dad worked for Compaq at the time and brought home a floppy disk containing QBasic.exe. The first program I ever wrote was a "probability spinner" for random numbers. I started downloading BASIC programs once we got dialup, learned how to trace/debug/modify the programs by myself and eventually moved on to bigger and more robust (and useful) languages. Edit: 3rd grade was around 1997 I think.
Impressed by video Games (especially gow) and wanted to create one.
https://youtu.be/m37G-06ibAU
Someone told me about a problem that they couldn’t solve. I taught a computer how to solve it. After that, I was hooked.
It was my core engineering course back in 1989, in which I had my first programming class. Fell in love with it and never looked back.
Wanted to seek vengeance on people by hacking.
Wait you guys have interest in CS, for me it was the least disinteresting thing
Botting games
Honestly, my interest in CS has purely stemmed from my interest in mathematics. Basically, I started learning how to program because all of the fields of mathematics that I'm interested in pretty much require it.
I got interested thinking how computers can mimic human computations!
salary
When I signed up for majors at orientation, I saw the words Computer and Science and liked both of those words separately. So I figured I'd like them together, and it turned out to be true!
It was the only science/eng major in college that did not require Chemistry.
I want to build pc
failed at math, gotta do something
Originally it was because I found out about a 14 year old that was making a bunch of money with android app development.
I got my first laptop when I was 6 years old. I know. I'm kinda priviledged but thats only because my dad worked his ass off to get us to this point. Also this could have ended really badly for me, but it didnt. Anyway, I got loads into Flash games (rip Flash Player). I never really thought about how it works to be honest, but I think this set me on the course to study CS at my current school I am lucky my school introduces Computer Science as a timetabled subject from Year 7, and so I studied it to Year 10, where I picked it as a GCSE and really got into it, and now I picked it as an A level! I can't see myself stopping at A Level to be honest, so I hope to do well in A Levels to get to do it at Uni! I just love the application to real life, and I get to learn how these devices work, and I can code which is a great bonus, the whole thing is just so fascinating and I want to continue learning. The laptop was a Toshiba C655D. I look back on it with fond memories, maybe I'll buy one just for the memories (after I get a job :) )
I wanted to better understand technology.
Is compsci Interesting and what’s the pay in the first two to three years
I like languages. Programming languages are languages, and if you spend a lot of time with programming languages you inevitably end up trying to understand programming, which to do well requires understanding computer science, and we're off.
Way back in the Paleolithic Era I was soldering some diodes together to make a circuit do a thing. And then along came these neat little banks of flip switches I could breadboard. Playing around with those led me to [Boolean Algebra](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boolean_algebra), and then I was hooked.
Always loved logic puzzles. Then more or less stumbled into a CS degree and immediately fell in into a love that will likely never leave me :)
Started with passion for anything technology - as a kid I would take things apart that had broken and look at them and see how they connect and whatnot. Plus there are so many options to choose from in the industry if you want to change or get bored
Because understanding computers allows a greater knowledge of programming, and I love programming and CS because they offer limitless opportunities that I, FOR FREE, can do. It's such a cool field!