How Did You Learn Computer Programming?

3min Snip

00:00

Play full episode

Summary

Transcript

Episode notes

John Carmack: I can remember as going through the learning process where you find at the start you're just learning how to do the most basic possible things. In fact one of my first sort of major technical hacks that I was kind of fond of was on the Apple to computers they had a mode called low resolution graphics. They could have 16 different colors and I wanted to make a game kind of like the arcade game Vanguard just a scrolling game. So I figured out that I could kind of tweak just a couple things that I barely understood to put it into a graphics mode and I could draw graphics. Then I could just do a line feed at the very bottom of the screen and then the

John Carmack is a legendary programmer, co-founder of id Software, and lead programmer of many revolutionary video games including Wolfenstein 3D, Doom, Quake, and the Commander Keen series. He is also the founder of Armadillo Aerospace, and for many years the CTO of Oculus VR. Please support this podcast by checking out our sponsors:
– InsideTracker: https://insidetracker.com/lex to get 20% off
– Indeed: https://indeed.com/lex to get $75 credit
– Blinkist: https://blinkist.com/lex and use code LEX to get 25% off premium
– Eight Sleep: https://www.eightsleep.com/lex and use code LEX to get special savings
– Athletic Greens: https://athleticgreens.com/lex and use code LEX to get 1 month of fish oil

EPISODE LINKS:
John’s Twitter: https://twitter.com/ID_AA_Carmack
Books mentioned:
Hackers: Heroes of the Computer Revolution: https://amzn.to/3SkNZER
Game Engine Black Book Wolfenstein 3D: https://amzn.to/3QlOqg8

PODCAST INFO:
Podcast website: https://lexfridman.com/podcast
Apple Podcasts: https://apple.co/2lwqZIr
Spotify: https://spoti.fi/2nEwCF8
RSS: https://lexfridman.com/feed/podcast/
YouTube Full Episodes: https://youtube.com/lexfridman
YouTube Clips: https://youtube.com/lexclips

SUPPORT & CONNECT:
– Check out the sponsors above, it’s the best way to support this podcast
– Support on Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/lexfridman
– Twitter: https://twitter.com/lexfridman
– Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/lexfridman
– LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/lexfridman
– Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/lexfridman
– Medium: https://medium.com/@lexfridman

OUTLINE:
Here’s the timestamps for the episode. On some podcast players you should be able to click the timestamp to jump to that time.
(00:00) – Introduction
(09:49) – Programming languages
(40:53) – Modern programming
(50:55) – Day in the life
(58:45) – Hard work
(1:01:58) – Pizza and Diet Coke
(1:04:43) – Setup
(1:30:01) – id Software
(2:02:50) – Commander Keen
(2:09:36) – Hacker ethic
(2:17:16) – Wolfenstein 3D
(2:37:14) – Doom
(2:51:34) – Quake
(3:15:55) – John Romero
(3:23:42) – Metaverse
(3:52:04) – Elon Musk
(3:57:59) – Mars
(4:07:01) – Nuclear energy
(4:10:39) – AGI
(4:57:51) – Andrej Karpathy
(5:00:50) – Martial arts
(5:09:49) – Advice for young people
(5:18:49) – Meaning of life