Flashback: 2001

In Brazil the primary school used to take 8 years to come to an end, after which a 3-year long secondary school period took place. They eventually introduced a special kind of secondary school that added a professional training programme, lasting the same 3 years period. It was called something that roughly translates to 'Technical Tuition.'

I enrolled on a Technical Tuition school to learn IT. I was excused of English lessons after I suceeded on a proficiency exam. On year one we had basic computing and logic, but we also had Visual Basic and Delphi. Of course, it was all very Windows-centric, no Brazilian school could afford Macintoshes. Apple products were still a niche thing in 2001.

I didn't know that Delphi was a version of Object Pascal, and that Pascal was one of the gates for Macintosh programming, otherwise I would put more effort into learning it. Delphi was more attractive than Basic for me in the beginning anyway, so that would have been fun.

Because of the school being geared towards PCs, my dad bought me a PC that year. It would be my last PC and the last computer I didn't actually pay for. It was a bit painful when the first iMacs showed up and I realised I was stuck with Windows for the foreseeable future.

Otherwise, I've learned JavaScript. It was easy, no compiler required, no strong typing. It was proper programming mediocrity encapsuled in any browser. Little I knew that this scripting language would dictate my professional life in the future.

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