One Of The Big Lessons

In The Information Age, The Barriers [to Entry Into Programming] Just Aren't There. The Barriers Are Self Imposed. If You Want To Set Off And Go Develop Some Grand New Thing, You Don't Need Millions Of Dollars Of Capitalization. You Need Enough Pizza And Diet Coke To Stick In Your Refrigerator, A Cheap Pc To Work On, And The Dedication To Go Through With It. We Slept On Floors. We Waded Across Rivers.

The Important Point Is That The Cost Of Adding A Feature Isn't Just The Time It Takes To Code It. The Cost Also Includes The Addition Of An Obstacle To Future Expansion. Sure, Any Given Feature List Can Be Implemented, Given Enough Coding Time. But In Addition To Coming Out Late, You Will Usually Wind Up With A Codebase That Is So Fragile That New Ideas That Should Be Dead-simple Wind Up Taking Longer And Longer To Work Into The Tangled Existing Web. The Trick Is To Pick The Features That Don't Fight Each Other.

The Speed Of Light Sucks.

I Recognize That I Possess A Very Special Intellect, But At The Same Time, I Recognize That I'm Lacking In A Lot Of Areas. But Being Well-rounded Is Greatly Overrated.

The Situation Is So Much Better For Programmers Today - A Cheap Used Pc, A Linux Cd, And An Internet Account, And You Have All The Tools Necessary To Work Your Way To Any Level Of Programming Skill You Want To Shoot For.