Stories of Hacking: Part 1

So after my first post,Why Hack? I have decided to start a multi-part series on some of the things that really got me interested in programming.  Some of these things may kind of scare people who I gave assistance to in the past as I've done some things that may later in life make you a little bit upset.

Pre Engineering Problem Solving II

When I started Engineering Problem Solving II, EPS2 from here on out because I'm lazy, I never knew that I had a knack for programming.  Honestly, I had done some small hacks with my calculator in high school just to simplify things while in class, but nothing all that impressive. (Though I did beat block dude without any passwords) In the end, I knew I could do some fairly simple programming things, putting math equations into 'code' and finding a way to do some 'logic' based on variable inputs.  Prompting the user for numbers in a pretty good looking way that was intuitive was also very important to me at the time.  I wanted to make things easy to transfer to other calculators so that classmates could do the same things that I wanted to do to simplify things in class.  After all, most of life is finding the best tool for the job, and if I can provide that, all the better.  

Engineering Problem Solving II

Once I got into EPS2 and got through the first (few) homework assignments, I realized that this programming thing was what I really enjoyed doing.  Needless to say, I was getting a lot of requests for help because I was able to understand the code that people were bringing me.  I would do my homework multiple times in order to get more practice with the different skills that we were taught in the class, and I'm thankful that I was able to continually bump my skills by rewriting code to accomplish the same task.  Once I started getting a lot of questions, I would use my first iteration of my homework solution to give an example for my floor mates to check out.  The reasoning behind this is that we were told at the start of the semester that our programs would be run through a software likeness program. (similar to http://turnitin.com) I knew that if my first iteration was presented, and I turned in my most recent iteration, there would be very little way for me to get 'caught' helping out other students.  That all being said, my first iteration was usually very dirty and ugly and usually had some defects. (sorry friends, told you it would hurt) I realized that I had a knack for this programming thing, and that it was definitely a path that I wanted to pursue.

From that point on I knew that programming was going to play a major role in my life and I'm happy that it now is. To Be Continued...