‘I’ll say that learning to create software changes you and makes you different—not better or worse, just different. You may fi nd that people treat you harshly because you can create software, maybe using words like “nerd.” Maybe you’ll find that because you can dissect their logic, they hate arguing with you. You may even find that simply knowing how a computer works makes you annoying and weird to them.
To this, I have just one piece of advice: they can go to hell. The world needs more weird people who know how things work and who love to figure it all out. When they treat you like this, just remember that this is your journey, not theirs. Being different is not a crime, and people who tell you it is are just jealous that you’ve picked up a skill they never in their wildest dreams could acquire.
You can code. They cannot. That is pretty damn cool.’
—Zed A Shaw.
