In a weird turn of events, Neopets turned me onto computer programming. Neopets was (and probably still is) essentially Tamagotchi on steroids. Much of my childhood got sunk into Neopets, so I’m glad in retrospect I can see some definite, positive effects out of it, not least of which is my joy of computer programming and web development. The fateful day I discovered guild pages on Neopets set me on a trajectory that’s influenced me to this day. I wanted to be in the coolest guild ever — so of course — I had to make the coolest looking guild page. If I could make a page look cool, I’d probably get invited into the coolest guild to make their page awesome. So how were these people making their pages so different and cool? I searched about and eventually found a page that let you edit what looked like an alien language called HTML.
“Mom, can you help me learn HTML? I have to make the coolest guild page on Neopets!”
So one library visit later, I had a web server up on the old Windows XP machine and was churning out HTML. There was a lot of scrolling, flashing, wacky colored text flying around the browser. I was fascinated by the marquee tag for several hours. I knew that was my ticket; Now that I knew how to use marquee, I’d have the coolest guild page, easy! Because of this excursion into the world of HTML, I’d soon make the next leap to CSS, and then JavaScript. I was already hooked. I’d try programming in C, and eventually install Linux and start learning how to use the command line. Don’t underestimate the educational value of play! We have such a twisted sense of what learning looks like. A kid smiling and laughing couldn’t be learning anything, right? That couldn’t be further from the truth.