Many moons ago, I used to program in Commodore Basic.
It was a simple practise, the more I did it, the more familiar I became with the language, the easier it got.
I started writing basic programs to do basic things. suggesting random numbers, etc.
Then short quiz games, mathematical problems, etc.
Moved on to basic games, then developed the games to be a bit more complex, then challenging.
Next I started to use code to program and detect a joystick (instead of keys), this progressed to programming sprite graphics in stead of printing the graphics on the screen.
The next step was then poking machine code to create movement of the sprite (a sprite is just a square grid of pixels that can be manipulated – turned on and off to create a character – for movement, etc.) there were eight sprites available on the commodore, if I remember correctly.
Then I could peek (look into a location in the memory) to detect collisions with other sprites on the screen, if this happened, then a reaction came about (a crash sprite, a change to the score, a loss of a life, etc.)
Then I worked out how to detect (peek) collisions between a sprite and a basic graphic I’d printed on the screen (like an edge I’d printed to the screen).
It was never at a professional level, but it was very playable.
It sounds far more complex than it actually is.
I then developed sounds for the game by poking the computer’s SID chip memory locations.
The thing was, everybody could do this.
At the time there was no internet, no youtube videos teaching you how to do this.
All I had were a couple of reference books, that I still have today.
Now the point I’m trying to make (yes, there is a point!)
I didn’t need “experts” I didn’t have tech wizards to confer with, there was no question and answer sessions and there certainly was nobody selling their services to do it for me.
You bought the computer, sat down in front of a TV screen and got on with it, trial and error.
Today, even for a basic website such as this one, the amount of computer program code and varying computer languages and files is absolutely not necessary!
It’s way over-complicated.
But why?
The old computers were 8 bit – now they are 64 bit (I think my old one is 32 bit)
There is no “industry standard” programming language today.
There is C# – python – php – html (the list is endless).
Codecs for this sound file and that sound file, file sizes are getting huge, taking up gigabytes of memory.
When things go wrong, it’s normally down to an update somewhere, of course it’s never due to the sheer amount of crap programming running, that’s needed in today’s world.
I’ll give you a basic example:
Using Commodore basic…
10?”<clr home button>”
Job done. When the program was run, got to line 10 and cleared the screen of everything.
Then moved on to the next line, next command.
In today’s world…
How?
Depends on which language is being used, small differences between them all.
Does the html (website language) work or is a python script running?
Is the host computer (phone, PC or laptop) running windows or linux operating system?
Does the host computer have the required programming language installed or does it have to be uploaded as the webpage loads?
Then you have apps… a way of running a program on a device but with no way of preventing or blocking unwanted aspects of it.
You get the picture.
So why is it needlessly over-complicated?
How many jobs, education and careers are involved in the industry today?
Confusion costs the user, ie, US.
Now apply this same needless confusion to every other aspect of life in today’s world…