goto

10 ? "Steve"

20 GOTO 10

RUN

My first computer program. And a significant instance in a lifetime of self induced 'oh crap' moments. 

The green text started to repeatedly fill the blank screen with my name: "SteveSteveSteve". 

The entire screen quickly filled and began scrolling upwards. 

This was so cool. I told the computer to do something and it did it!

Bliss slowly transformed into concern as the scrolling continued. And continued. 

A flash of thought that I had broken the computer or sent it into some continuous loop that would make the machine unusable from that point onward almost sent me into a panic attack. 

My brain was rapidly switching between different fates and none of them were pleasant. I was 13 and 'correcting my opinions' was fairly common in those years.

I had watched enough Star Trek to know that pulling out the power cord would destroy the computer in a shower of sparks, but that's where my mind was starting to settle. 

I didn't know what 'anxiety' was at the time, I just knew I was in big trouble if I didn't find a way out.

I did not find a way out. 

My friend, who was standing next to me, completely forgotten in the moment, had told me to type that code onto the screen. He was taking a computer class at school and thought it would be funny. He pressed something on the keyboard. The scrolling stopped, the blinking cursor returned, and he smiled a big grin at me.

I have since moved far away from that snippet of code and the fear of having my own opinions, but I still sometimes get a little thrill of terror before pressing the ENTER key. 

Lessons learned: 

1. Friends are a mixed bag.

2. Have a back out plan.

3. Don't commit until you are ready to commit.

I admit that I was not very good at reading technical documents as a kid. 

I had a commodore 64 but never really read the manual. I skimmed and hunted and pecked for information. 

That's why I got a D- on my first computer programming final in high school. 

You see, every code example in the section on BASIC programming that I looked at used single characters as variable names: A$, B$, etc. 

The dollar sign designated the variable as a string.

I remember the manual stating that variables can have multiple characters, but only the first two were significant. 

In my sophomoric mind, this translated to instantly seeing no point to using two characters as the extra letters would consume extra ink and paper when printed out. And I was lazy. 

I obviously didn't know at the time that my laziness was prepping me for a career using the shortened command names in UNIX.

I had written a role playing game character creator. Because I didn't read the manual I had used GOTOs instead of GOSUBs for code branching, so my code was strung together like the random back yard zoomies map of a caffeinated corgi. 

Each GOTO section also reused the same variable names. Because I knew that variables consume memory, I had gotten it into my head that the less unique variables, the better. 

So combining unreadable variables with the cohesiveness of repelling magnets, I proudly turned in a thick stack of text filled paper to have a D- written in red across the top.

My ego recovered in due time but those lessons remain to this day. 

Lessons learned:

1. Variables need descriptive names.

2. Organize code into sections that make sense, functions, classes, etc.