[gordonzhu]

21

I was interning at a small startup and made some financial models in Excel (using functions like index and match together).

At the time, I told a programmer at the company that I wanted to learn programming. He looked at my work and told me that I was already doing it. I didn't believe him because I didn't think it was "real coding". I thought he was just being nice.

My first "real coding" was a year later. I modified a few of the example apps from "Head First PHP & MySQL" (https://www.oreilly.com/library/view/head-first-php/97805961...).

[authorfly]

Yes - This book alongside one on AJAX (oh the days of ready state). I still had databases named mismatch_<x> up until about 2014 IIRC!

The book was a perfect example of frictionless starting to code, jumping over hurdles, skipping wholistic education (e.g. all column types/more than select, update, insert in MySQL) for getting something that worked simply and linearly.

And funny examples that stuck in memory (decades later as it turns out..)... like a dating app that matches by opposites between "opposites attract".

Still got anything running based on it?