Ironically there was a time when a coding error could lead to physical damage to the screen, even the CPU or other electronics.
Also ironically, breaking things is not only half the fun it's maybe 75% of the learning.
Re:Girls and Software
by SamReidHughes on Sunday February 09, 2014 @10:11PM
(#7208879)
Read the VLC story. That time hasn't passed.
That wasn't VLC's fault, it was Dell putting a 10w sound card with a 7w speaker. It was a hardware problem.
My parents were nontechnical, but I was lucky enough to have my own computer and a good internet connection starting around 4th grade (8-9 yrs old). Feeling comfortable "breaking" my computer was another thing. I was deathly afraid of breaking things as a kid (unlike my younger brother), and I think it prevented me from coding and exploring things even earlier. I think becoming a great {coder, thinker, leader, etc.} requires internalizing that at some level, it's okay to break the rules.
I eventually found my way onto IRC around age 12, where everyone posed as a 17-yr-old female from LA. I was thankfully super paranoid and fended off child molesters by pretending I was a 56-yr-old man from Texas. ;)