My first program found the prime factorizations of numbers. I was taking an "intro to computers" course from the local college when I was in 7th grade. They didn't teach programming, but before long I found the source code (in BASIC) to one of the games and was able to understand enough that I tried programming before/after class. With my math background, I wasn't sure I could do, for example:
100 let x= x + 1
so I wrote the entire program without ever using the left-hand variable of an assignment on the right-hand side. The program ended up with two nearly identical halves with the flow of control alternating between them. It actually worked in the end, but it took me days to write it.
I also remember completely not understanding computers when I started that class:
Instructor: "We use programming languages to tell the computer what to do."
Me: "What if it says 'no'?"
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tye
(but my friends call me "Tye")
