After a 30-year break, I returned to coding, and the experience brought back warm memories from my childhood…
I was a 12-year-old in a family of Soviet engineers navigating the shift from a Soviet economy to a capitalist world. One day, my father took me to his research lab, showed me a computer, and taught me how to insert five-inch floppy disks and run files. The sound of launching DOS and Norton Commander still echoes in my mind.
That moment sparked my interest in programming, leading me to learn BASIC and Pascal. It was a challenge. I didn’t have a computer as it was too expensive for my family. So I spent evenings reading manuals and writing code with paper and pen. Twice a week, I could visit a kids’ club called Pioneer Palace 🫡 in Kyiv, where we used old, clunky computers for free. We had a deal with our teacher: finish blind typing training early, and we could do whatever we wanted afterward. While most kids played Pacman or Digger games, I was among the few nerds 🤓 writing code. Communicating with that metal machine in a special language was captivating. I’d create simple graphics and games, typing the code from my paper notes until the lesson ended, then transfer it back to my notepad to continue at home.

I proudly showed my work to my parents during dinners. They looked at my papers with code, probably thinking I was a bit crazy, but they were just glad I wasn’t out on the street. Eventually, this led my father to the decision to save up some money and buy me my first IBM 486 — an old machine with a 128MB hard drive, and 1MB of RAM. It was a broken and frustrating second-hand computer, but it taught me a how to diagnose problems just by the mechanic sound of the hard drive’s heads, processor cooler and the screech of an 8-bit speaker🙂
Few years later I lost interest in coding during my teenage years and shifted focus to friends and fun.
Fast forward ⏩ 30 years, and here I am diving back into programming—this time, no-code programming. I simply speak to Cursor app and guidding the process with human language. It’s a completely new, magical experience, but the dopamine rush when all the errors are fixed and everything runs smoothly is just as satisfying as it was in childhood.
Returning to coding after so many years reminded me that we may leave things behind, but sometimes they find their way back to us when we’re ready.
IF enjoy_process = TRUE THEN
PRINT "What a time to be alive!"
END IF