I bought a TRS-80 when they first came out.
It had 8K (I believe it was K vs MB) of main memory.
The computer came with a book explaining Basic.
I’d write small programs and save them to audio tape.
You had to load your program each time you turned on the computer.
I learned how to program in basic. I then learned how to program in Mumps, Mis, or today M.
I haven’t dabbled in other languages, but I don’t think it would be that difficult. Once you understand the concepts in programming, it should be pretty straight forward.
You learn the commands and use them to achieve the same results you did in other languages. Of course the other languages would be more robust/complex.
The point is, you don’t necessarily need a teach hanging over your head.
I literally hated sitting in a classroom and listening to a teacher prattle on and on and on and on...
Give me a book and a machine and I’ll learn at my own pace, and frankly a lot faster. It didn’t take me months to learn how to program. It took me days. I believe more complex languages would have taken me weeks, but I wouldn’t have had to spend hour after hour in a classroom bored to death. I wouldn’t have had to spend years getting a degree. I wouldn’t have had to go broke in the process.
And you know what? Programming is awful fun!
Don’t know why it is, but writing some code and seeing a result of your thinking seemed cool. Even today is does.
I remember those days with the double floppy disks. Kids today have no idea what that was. Audio tape? Well, that was before my time on PCs.
The other thing I discovered is that computing became more fun when you had a “practical application” for your coding.
I created a PC-based website management system which I regularly use in my journalist/industry analyst work. In creating that, it forced me to learn more about HTML and CSS.
But then, when I got on Free Republic, I had to go back to the older generation of HTML when you had no style sheets. LOL!
But it was fun trying new things with that. So I guess the human mind enjoys a challenge. Much better use of time than playing cards on-line.
“Give me a book and a machine and I’ll learn at my own pace, and frankly a lot faster. It didn’t take me months to learn how to program. It took me days. I believe more complex languages would have taken me weeks, but I wouldn’t have had to spend hour after hour in a classroom bored to death. I wouldn’t have had to spend years getting a degree. I wouldn’t have had to go broke in the process.”
People like you, my siblings and younger relatives past the age of 21 are why the brick and mortar 4-? year college programs/degrees are in trouble and will be gone in about a decade.