[Coco] Thoughts on modern computers (sort of off topic)

[Mark McDougall]

On 3/02/2012 5:57 AM, Aaron Wolfe wrote:

> I doubt you'd lure many kids into the world of code
> with one today though.  Making your name appear on a TV screen just
> isn't as magical as it used to be.

Too true! Several years ago my wife's young brother (in his early teens 
at the time) decided that he wanted to learn to program.

He had the idea that his first (ever) programming project was to write a 
game similar to World Of Warcraft.

Hmm... he downloaded some programming environment (that I can't recall) 
that came with sample source to create a dialog box with some text on 
it. He quite proudly announced the next day that he had modified the 
text that was printed in the box...

...never got any further. I think he gave up when he couldn't find an 
API call to render an arbitrary 3D scene where you simply specify how 
many monsters there are and whether it's raining or not.

FTR I didn't bother getting involved, because I knew the outcome.

-- 
|    Mark McDougall    |  Error: witty remark not found!
| <http://pacedev.net> |