In his book "Outliers: The Story of Success", Malcolm Gladwell produces examples to back up a theory that 10,000 hours of practice are required to become proficient at a complex task. He stresses the importance of getting the opportunity to complete the 10,000 hours of practice. If you work 37.5 hours a day for 52 weeks a year then this equates to over 5 years of experience.
He uses Bill Gates as an example. Bill has access to a computer terminal connection to a remote mainframe computer in 1968 when he was in the eighth grade. He says: “From that moment forward, Gates lived in the computer room”. This was an exceptional opportunity for a young boy in 1968.
When I became interested in computers, the first part of my 10,000 hours was limited to books and, more importantly, computer magazines. I started out with Electronics Today International (ETI). I thought I was going to be interested in electronics until I discovered the microprocessor! Then I began to buy specialist computer magazines (with ETI at first and then instead of it later). My favourites were Personal Computer World (PCW) and Practical Computing. I read each issue from cover to cover. I still have many issues in my attic to this day.
I learned computer languages by reading program listings (hard to believe for people discovering computers today, but magazines in those times would include long program listings – generally written in BASIC – and people would enter these programs into their own computers). So these program listings were my Rosetta Stone. And all of my programming was done on imagined computers (we would call them “virtual” computers today!). I remember going on a holiday to my cousins in Co Derry and borrowing a book from the local library there on programming in Fortran. So I was able to add the ability to read (I have purposely selected to use “read” rather than “program in”) Fortran code during that holiday.
My first access to a real computer came when I got my own Apple ][ computer in 1978. Then came the process of changing from being able to read programs, to being able to write them! I would equate this change to the difference between learning the theory of driving a car to the actuality of being behind the wheel!
Here are some links to information about the magazines I have mentioned above:
Early UK Computer Magazines
PCW Covers
Practical Computing Covers