Bug, Hack, and Kludge…
Kludge (nee kluge) is (I think) the third term of art in its class of word. The first, of course, is Bug (which predates the world of computers). The second would be Hack. With Kludge following close on its heals. There were a number of others that I had learned between Bug and Kludge: Bit, Byte, Word, Hex, Octal, MODEM (as we spelled it then), BASIC, ASCII, etc etc.
People assumed I just picked it up like breathing. Some innate ability. The truth is that it was the hardest thing I had ever tried at the time, and I failed a lot. I took classes in BASIC twice, and read 2 books before it finally started to make sense. And then it was a lot of copying blocks of code from books and … (wait for it) Kludging them together to make things. Understanding came slowly.
But it was hard, and in a way I loved it because it was hard. Up till then lots of things came naturally or easily to me, and while I enjoyed them there was a lack of passion. But it was the thing that I wanted that eluded me so much that I just couldn’t let go. A feeling I would experience again soon, and often, and in relation to girls.
I didn’t give up on them either…
