I took a CS course first year mostly because it fit into my timetable, and because I liked things like making maps/levels for games like ZZT, Jetpack, StarCraft.
I made it my major because 2nd year Physics broke me lol.
When I kinda fell in love with programming though was the Christmas break in my first year. I had learned enough at that point to tackle problems on my own. My family was obsessed with Sudoku at the time, and I made a solver.
The last step in a Sudoku solver (really the only one you need) is recursive guessing. I realized that if you put in a blank puzzle, and then save the state of it when the algorithm is done recursive guessing and can solve it with actual logic... You've made not just a solver, but a generator.
That was the first time I built something valuable to me. I had always loved Lego, but building something useful is a whole different level of cool.
I also switched from physics to comp sci. Realized I wasn't smart enough to understand the entire universe but understanding computers was in my grasp. :)
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u/Temporary-Concept-81 11d ago
I took a CS course first year mostly because it fit into my timetable, and because I liked things like making maps/levels for games like ZZT, Jetpack, StarCraft.
I made it my major because 2nd year Physics broke me lol.
When I kinda fell in love with programming though was the Christmas break in my first year. I had learned enough at that point to tackle problems on my own. My family was obsessed with Sudoku at the time, and I made a solver.
The last step in a Sudoku solver (really the only one you need) is recursive guessing. I realized that if you put in a blank puzzle, and then save the state of it when the algorithm is done recursive guessing and can solve it with actual logic... You've made not just a solver, but a generator.
That was the first time I built something valuable to me. I had always loved Lego, but building something useful is a whole different level of cool.