by Martin_Silenus | 2025-09-19 18:53:23+00:00
That's exactly why I'm here today, after 40 years of passion, penniless, or with very little money, not rich. Disenchanted by the professional aspect of what was initially just a simple obsession with “how it works,” right down to my gut. Then a passion for machine code. Then a megalomaniacal delusion of creating, of bringing ideas to fruition. Not necessarily very elaborate ones. Simple stuff, and sometimes a little less so. Reinventing the wheel, often without even knowing it.

Like my algorithm for drawing lines as fast as possible in 68000 on my ST. Then a few years later, I learned that someone else had invented it almost 30 years before me, and I was able to put a name to my algorithm: Bresenham. Dammit! The Amiga had it natively too. Dammit again!

Again, I invented preemptive multitasking on my 68000. Interrupt, little beast. Vector branch to my task switcher, thanks... save registers, including SP... restore registers from another previously interrupted routine, including SP... write the PC to switch and off we go. A fucking idea, a simple idea. That was cool to see it work, to see the 0 index color changed by each task every 10 scanlines or so. Made me smile. And then a few years later, I learned the word preemptive, and the concept of multitasking that goes with it. And I learned that the Amiga OS (that bastard rival again!) already did it natively. And other machines long before it. DAM-DAM-DAMMIT! I was born too late!

And my email reader on PC, running DOS, in 1991 or 1992, I can't quite remember. It was my first relatively big project in C, because for more than 10 years before that, I swore only by assembler, and I wasn't about to do that in x86, yuck. I didn't know curses or ncurses, but I still made a small TUI with windows and buttons. I was the only one using it for months, for email, mailing lists, newsgroups maybe too, I don't remember... Then one day, a conscientious sysop sent me an email asking me the name of the email reader I was using, because the machine he was administering had flagged a header that wasn't quite right, and he wanted to let the author know :-) My first bug report... under those circumstances, it's not something you forget. “Thanks for the feedback, buddy, but it doesn't have a name, I'm the author, and I'll fix that crap!”

I'm sure you have some fond memories like that too.

These are just examples. There have been others. Maybe even things that no one has ever done before, but that doesn't matter. Because it's still fun, whether we're reinventing the wheel or not. Especially when we don't know anything. It's rewarding when it works. Lots of little moments of pride that we keep to ourselves. Pride in having invented something without anyone's help, when all we had were “XXX Bible” to glean technical informations from, or BBS.

So don't listen to them. They have nothing interesting to say. They never loved programming, they always pretended. And today they tell you that finally, we no longer need to code, that we are finally relieved of this thankless task, that we can finally focus on what really matters.

Bullshit. Either die with your mouth open or let me die in peace! What matters is what we love. The rest is just survival. So if I have to die from my obsession, so be it.

By all means, OP, don't implore them. They've choosen their path, and we've choosen ours. Whatever you say about that won't change anything.

I did not share anything. Am I selfish? Not sure. I did not think it could be fun to others, or worth it. Especially when you consider stuff that already existed since ages, and undoubtedly much more elaborate. “All those moments will be lost in time, like tears in rain” :-)