I posted this at Slashdot in response to an article about Old School Programming. I’ve written about Mister Maier before, but some lessons do bear repeating. The story is highly relevant to projects I’m developing now, so I thought I’d replicate it here. Enjoy.

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I started programming on my C64 when I was seven years old. Commodore Magazine had reams of printed code to type in every month, and I was fascinated to learn how it all hung together to make a working program.

In high school, I noticed a BASIC programming class offered, and I took it knowing I was in for an easy A. (I was a bored D student with an A+ brain, so that class appealed to me.) The first program was the usual HELLO WORLD deal with a few extras thrown in for interest. I coded it in the way I’d learned how. It was fast and easy.

The next day, I found my printed program hanging up on the door with the words “NEVER DO THIS” in red ink blazing at the top. I brought it to my teacher and demanded an explanation. The code worked, it ran, it gave the desired output. What gave?

Turns out the class was in *Structured* BASIC, which I’d never encountered before.

My Teacher, Mister Maier, told me that it was obvious that I knew what I was doing with BASIC programming concepts, but learning how to structure my code wouldn’t be significant work for me. I was already learning PASCAL and other structured languages anyway; it was easy to apply those ideas to BASIC, which I’d always thought of in terms of line numbers and GOTOs.

Mr Maier offered to make me his aide: I wouldn’t have to do all the boring programs and I would have unfettered access to the computer lab. In return, I would help him in class by assisting students debug their code and get ideas about how to tackle problems.

His was a brilliant solution. He elevated the challenge level of the class to meet my skills. He showed insight and trust in *me*, which was something teachers didn’t generally feel inspired to do around me previously. He gave me the opportunity to TEACH, and that kept my investment in the class surprisingly high. Suddenly my expertise in this esoteric arena began to pay off.

Because of that, I became more invested in my own formal education, my confidence skyrocketed, I went on to college (which surprised everyone), graduated with honors, and pursued a Masters in Education.

Mr Maier literally changed my life, and I have spaghetti coding practices to thank for opening that door.

That, and a damn fine teacher.

I’ve worked on the Long Tail Gamer site for weeks now, and it’s finally coming together: from the sizzling brainwave that demanded me out of bed one midnight to the final CSS tweaks I’ll be making this morning. I’m psyched to work on a media project again, something in-house that I can really sink into and enjoy.

So yes, video games. I love ‘em. I play ‘em. I can’t afford the new ones. But there is a lot of great entertainment out there on the long tail … I hope you enjoy the show!

This year’s Nanowrimo surprises me. I’m finding it easy to submerge my inner editor and let the words flow practically unchecked from my fingers. This year I had a story to tell and a plan to go with it. For the first time, there’s something here that I really want other people to read: some kind of cross between my memoirs and a research paper. My buddy Ed calls the mode “creative non-fiction.” I’m glad for the creative part, because frankly, I’m having to fill in a few gaps with made up shit.

I’ve felt like I’ve lost my intellectual cadence over the past few years. The memory isn’t what it used to be. I have to search for words more often than not, and a lot of the time I can sense my mind preparing to go off track in the middle of things. Part of getting older I suppose. When I’m in the mood to complain, I focus on my forgetfulness.

So writing a story that threads 30 years of experiences together would seem a bit fruitless, right? I can barely remember my shopping list. How am I going to knit together a story like that? It’s all fog and muddle.

Yet, in the past 45,000+ words, scenes from the past have leaped to the forefront as I write. Authentic details I haven’t considered in literally decades are bubbling up from the depths to add a sense of continuity and completeness. I’m surprised at how much I really do remember. My brain feels like it’s working again.

A sense of reckless abandon contributes to the fun. By giving my frontal lobe a backseat to the experience, I find myself enjoying the ride instead of critiquing it. Since the ride is my life, past events are taking on a new sense of being in the present.

I’m a mental packrat. I hold on to thoughts and feelings and ideas that are too good to let go. Grudges, regrets, sure, those too. Putting them on the page is like giving them a place to live outside of my head. I feel freer, like I’ve finally said something that’s been stuck in my craw for years. I suppose I’m doing that “processing” thing that psychoanalysts and self-help gurus talk about.

Prior Nanowrimos have been about unfettered creation. Start at Situation X and build, build, build. That took me into some interesting places. Fleshing out.

This year is more about flushing out. My brain has stored half a lifetime of cruft and notions, half-connected schemas and loosely hung threads. The unfettered writing madness of Nanowrimo has scoured out a lot of toxic buildup and left my mental pathways cleaner. No more ring around the cranium!

I’m easily at the 50,000 word mark by tomorrow. I’m about a third of the way toward where I know I’m going to end up. This is the year I write an actual novel instead of a heap of words.

I really enjoy text adventures of the Infocom stripe. With the announcement of the winners of the 2008 Interactive Fiction Competition, I now have a whole slew of new games to play.

To play interactive fiction, I like using Gfrotz. I’d rather play on my Nokia N800 though, because laptops are clunky and I never know when I’ll have a little time on my hands. After a little tracking, I found that GFrotz is available for install on Nokia internet tablets. Yay! Point your tablet to http://pupnik.de/frotz.html, download the install file, and enjoy.

I find and lose this link on a regular basis, so now it is preserved for an iEternity. This may be something of a niche market, but what the heck.

One happy, happy day, the NaNoWriMo servers will be able to handle the load.

Until then, I’m comfortable knowing that I’m over 3000 words ahead of the average. At least, today. Tomorrow, maybe not so much. But I haven’t had to stretch for a word yet.