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Cake day: June 12th, 2023

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  • When I was around 14, my parents got my sister and I a 2nd hand Xbox (the OG big square Xbox), but we were too poor to buy any games for it. I used to rent the games from blockbuster for three days at a time.

    I was fascinated with electronics, I’d build little radio kits and LED chasers, I was okay with a soldering iron. I was researching mod chips online, to play burned games. The guides on installation emphasised how small all the solder points are, and how fine the wires are, that it’s not a job for a beginner. But I thought it would be fine.

    I tried to order a modchip online, but the site didn’t deliver to Australia. I remember seeing people advertising in the news paper classifieds section modchipping services, so they must be available somehow. I called one of the guys, but he said he only sold them as part of installation, couldn’t sell me just the modchip. I called a couple others, but none wanted to talk to a 14yo kid.

    My parents caught wind of what I was trying to do, and they offered to pay to send it to the guy to get it done. So we just went with that. I was disappointed I didn’t get to do the installation myself.

    The next week, we got our Xbox back, turned it on, and played a couple of burned games, it worked great. But I was curious. Did the guy do a good installation job? What gauge wires did he use? Which brand and model modchip did he use? I was full of questions. So while my parents were out I opened the Xbox up, disassembled it right down to the motherboard. I found the modchip, I was fascinated by how small it was, how fine the wires were, and how tiny the solder points were. It all looked so fragile. It looked like the guy had done a pretty good job.

    I put the Xbox back together, went to play it, but it wouldn’t read any discs, not even genuine discs. Weird, did I forget to plug something back in on reassembly? I opened it up and found the disc drive cable was slightly unplugged. Plugged it in, reassembled, and tried it again. This time it read genuine discs, but it wouldn’t play any burned discs. I tried for a while, and it was like the modchip wasn’t working. That was when my parents got home. I was so angry and frustrated with myself, my mum asked what the matter was, and I started sobbing and crying furiously, I said “why can’t I leave things alone?” and “Why do I always have to take things apart?” and “Why didn’t I just enjoy the games?”.

    A couple days later I had calmed down enough, I opened the Xbox up again, and had another look. I saw the problem immediately. One of the tiny hair-like wires on the modchip had popped off. Maybe because of my previous poking around in there, or maybe it just came off by itself, idk. Luckily it was on the modchip side, not on the motherboard side, so there was a relatively large pad to solder it back onto. Still smaller than anything I’d soldered before, but I gave it a go. It took about an hour, with my oversized non-temperature-controlled soldering iron, but I got it soldered back in place. While was there I resoldered a couple wires alongside it, so they were more secure too. I was shaking with anticipation when I put it all back together yet again, and fired it up. It worked! Played burned games again! I was so happy I was crying. The awful low from days before transformed into an amazing high of achievement, and gratification.

    My parents told me the lesson was to never take things apart, leave well enough alone. But they were wrong.the lesson was far greater. It gave me the self confidence to know I can fix things. Yes I can and will break things, but I can fix them. I somehow absorbed that into my identity. From then on I was always trying to fix things. Phone line died, I repaired it. Computer got a virus, I formatted and reinstalled the OS. Lawn mower wouldn’t start, I cleaned and rebuilt the carburettor, didn’t know what I was doing, but I just did it, because I had the confidence. Then at age 24 I got a job as an electronics repair technician, so it worked out for me.













  • flubba86@lemmy.worldtoProgrammer Humor@lemmy.mlAnd don't forget RTFM
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    4 months ago

    Actually this is the biggest hurdle in leaning how to code. You can blame the huge numbers of “learn to code in 24 hours” articles and videos online and the the influx of “5 day bootcamp” courses. Its like teaching someone the basics of how to drive a car but never teaching them the road rules and never taking them on the road.

    A better analogy might be learning a foreign language. It’s like teaching someone all the words in Spanish, but never putting them together in a conversation.

    I’d argue that if you say “I know how to code, I know what variables are and how to print text to the console, how do I make an app?” Then actually you don’t know how to code. You might know the basics of a programming language, and that is the first step in learning coding, but there are many steps after that.

    I identified this gap a few years ago after seeing a couple of my friends (one finished a boot camp, and one finished a software development major at Uni) both were in this same situation. I determined there is a big gap between “knowing a programming language” and “knowing how to make software”. It’s like going from “I know how to write words” to “I know how to write a novel”. It’s not something that comes easy. It’s something that can take time (often years) to get good at. This is the reason you see requirements like “3 years software development experience” on entry level programmer jobs. The number of people in your situation is incredibly high. The coding bootcamps churn them out by the hundreds every month.

    A couple of years ago when I was between jobs, I created a Gumtree ad advertising “post-bootcamp” courses, that aimed at bridging this gap. It was a series of private 1on1 lessons aimed at teaching someone to go from “knowing how to code” to being “software developer” job ready. Lots of people have many different learning styles and different paths they took to this point. The key is focussing not on the giving them the missing information, but teaching the person how to identify what steps are missing and how to find resources to learn them (because that’s the real missing knowledge wink).

    Unfortunately I found some people didn’t want to learn how to learn for themselves, and just wanted me to hand them the “secret missing parts” on a platter.