Comment by da_murvel
8 years ago
Excuse my portion of scepticism, it's not the fact that a "12 year old" built this, sure anyone can learn how to code and we can't know how much help this person got along the way. But it's rather the person's language when writing plain text, here in the comments for example. It doesn't feel adolescent but more grownup to me ... But maybe it's just me realising my own shortcommings as a 12 year old, as I only was playing with my friends and the odd computer and video game.
Do kids really do their own science fair projects? We have different rules of ownership for age-appropriate levels of mentorship.
Also, I and likely you come from a different generation (I'm aged late 30s) where my parents knew nothing about coding and I genuinely had to learn everything on my own reading books at a library when my parents would drop me off.
I only had access to a very expensive family computer where my parents would freak out if I changed something on the fancy appliance they poorly understood and essentially every language other than qbasic needed a pricey proprietary compiler costing hundreds of dollars.
These days with the accessibility of the internet, explosion of open source, craigslist laptops perfect for learning going for under $75 and the commonality of programming as a stable career, it wouldn't surprise me to find children living in say, the silicon valley with programmer parents who successfully get their child excited about programming early.
It's a different set of circumstances and a 12 year old able to write graphics demos doesn't sound that implausible.
I was extremely lucky and got Internet access in 1990 (pre-web) when I was myself 12 years old. I was entirely conscious of the fact that if the adults figured out that I was 12, I was dead meat. They wouldn't listen to a thing I had to say, and wouldn't feel the need to defend their claims against any argument from me. So, I spoke well. It's not all that hard to do. As such, I can't recall a single time I was ever called out. When I did on occasion choose to reveal my age, I often encountered disbelief, but by then it was usually after I'd already won them over so they could overcome their bigotry. And that's really what it is, I've realized in the years since. It's just simple 'they're not like me, any difference must be negative, it must be rooted in what they are and insurmountable, I will always be above them' bigotry. Despite the clear fact that if a 12 year old is taught to install a kitchen sink, something I'm sure anyone could see as possible, then clearly they'd be superior to most adults who don't know how to install kitchen sinks. So why is anything else different?
I think that to post here, is a good sign. Show HN wherever you are able to do, alone or after a 100M financing is one of the reason forums like this one exists. The other is to just share your code and meet digital people.
> It doesn't feel adolescent but more grownup to me
Showing skepticism is also fine, our industry is not just nice code review and beautiful moments where people want to encourage you.
it is incredibly to rare to produce a prodigy without a very involved parent or a close mentor.
Mozart, Tiger Woods, Terrence Tao all had parents helped them start extensively from a young age