What Started You To Be A Developer ?

I was trying to look for myself about why I got into this field. What's so motivated me at first ? Is it because this field is popular ? No. Is is because I want to work at the office ? No because as a developer we can work anywhere we want. Is it because Engineering Career is so great ? Not really

Well the simple answer is I started as developer because I love gaming.

You may ask, "wait, but it's not related at all...."
Let me explain how it is...

My first game is a PlayStation-like appearance console with a cartridge one, because inside it a NES system. You may not encounter it, but luckily I found the picture at the internet, check out the image below

It was my first console, I am around 5 years old at that time, as a kindergarten kid I love to spend the time to play game such as Super Mario Bros, Metal Gear, Contra, Knight Rider, etc.

And I think at that time, unconsciously I develop a skill named problem solving because when I game, will be thinking like "damn how do I defeat this boss ?" or like "If I'm doing this, I will got death, if I'm doing this, maybe the enemy will blown away and I got my reward, but I will out of bullet". You got the idea right ? It is problem solving, and problem solving is essential in making an algorithm

Time passes, I experienced the platform like PS1, PS2, PS3 and PC (until now)

Back at the time when I'm about to enter the college, and have a dream that I want to make a game, I want to be a game developer, so I entered the computer science field. It's fun, I make my first game, so happy about it, but I realize that at that time, my country is not a good market for game development at that time, comparing with the country such as U.S or Canada.

Shortly, I swerve my way to Software Engineering because Game Development would not successfully make a living here.

But the point is, thanks to gaming, my dream to become a game developer (even though it failed) I started to learn Computer Science. And now here I am, a Software Engineer.

Fun fact, Elon Musk started as developer because of gaming too, you can check it here

I hope you learned something new from this post, especially for one of you that have a kid and you want to introduce the computer science for them ? I think you can buy them a game console or PC one.