Becoming a software engineer
Tags: culture, beginners, devjournal
Published: 2021-06-07 05:27:46

---
title: Becoming a software engineer
published: true
date: 2021-06-06 04:34:07 UTC
tags: culture,beginners,devjournal
canonical_url: https://sul.im/blog/becoming-a-software-engineer/
---

Recently I realized that a professional career started for me twenty years ago. However the journey of becoming a software engineer begins much earlier, and the first sparkle of interest wasn't created by a computer itself.

The story starts for me with a book.

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![Book: And I was in a computer city](https://sul.im/blog/images/a-book-that-changed-my-life.min.2f06c2ba330eba0cb2bbf9ba818df3b84771f0162ea7e2d0f4dbd95eafee0de6778083fb40cc7bbcc3a51a8af868511aefccd490015c94aa7ad33ba99107736a.jpg)

When I was about 9 years old, my parents bought me a book[^1] about a boy who got inside of a computer. The boy helped people living there to catch a computer virus and found many friends there. It was an amazing adventure for the little boy and me. The book wasn't an ordinary one. It had two parts: one is the story itself, and another one is a glossary with all "computer terms" mentioned in the story. The glossary wasn't that boring list of terms with explanations either. It was a comic! Every term there was a short story in a comic style.

![Book: Prof. Fortran's encyclopedia](https://sul.im/blog/images/fortran-encyclopedia.min.ebad19864d36f3701bd887bcd3b4798b1ba4e40ea2fe4b569dc9811c83d01f1ab9994169a2f669549704fb58d4cf7ee1259eb76c730a6b7862a79966f091389b.jpg)

The book became something special for me. I was going through the glossary part over and over again, enjoying every detail. Seeing that, my parents got me an extension to the book. It was a computer encyclopedia for kids. Basically, it was the glossary part extended with other terms (comics!), math puzzles, and little games.

The encyclopedia contained also instructions on how to build a computer model using paper and clues [^2]. After a couple days of deliberate work, my first computer was ready! I was playing video games on it using one of the best tools ever - imagination :smile:

Like every kid, I was thinking to become an astronaut who explores space, or a doctor who helps people, or an adventurer who travels around the world, or lots of other things, but that was *before* the book. The book showed me an amazing world, and I decided to become a part of it. That was 30 years ago and I *never* regretted that choice. Every single day I truly enjoy being a software engineer who creates things, helps people, uses his imagination to solve problems, and explores the world he discovered many years ago.


## Hello Ruby

Of course, these books that inspired me aren't published anymore. However if you know a kid who is looking for ways to explore the world of computers, I can highly recommend ["Hello Ruby"](https://www.helloruby.com/) created by amazing Linda Liukas. Together with my son Tim we read two of them already, and that reminded me a lot of my childhood experience with the books that changed my life years ago.

Have a wonderful day! :wink:

[^1]: The book is written in Russian, and unfortunately I cannot find a link on its description in English.

[^2]: The first time when I got a chance to touch and work with a *real* the computer was six years after my parents gave me the book. But that's another story already. Stay tuned to listen to it soon.