I suppose it's quite fashionable at the moment to comment on the Steve Jobs' resignation as Apple's CEO. Maybe this is just another me-too post, but I felt compelled to say something about this moment.
The first computer I fell in love with was the Apple ][ (2? II?). I learned BASIC and a smidgen of assembly to write little games. I grew up with a bunch of other computer-nerd friends and we all swapped disks with games we copied (remember Copy ][ Plus?) or stuff we'd written. Only I didn't own an Apple. Instead the computer my parents chose to buy was a TRS-80. It was a good lesson in hiding your disappointment for the sake of loved ones' feelings.
Fast-forward to high-school and my parents upgraded us to a Mac Classic with 30MB external drive. I had walked away from programming for a few years and turned my attention to music. I didn't program on that Mac, but I did just about everything else. That computer carried me through my college years.
Once I entered professional life I was in the world of Windows, DOS and PCs. I was working for a financial services company and was about as far away from programming as a person could get. When I returned to the Pacific Northwest fifteen years ago, I found myself back in the world of computers.
My professional career in computers really started with UNIX and Linux. I was a pretty hard-core Linux guy for a long time, until the day I finally ran out of patience with all the fiddly configuration. I bought my first modern Mac five years ago and started learning to develop on the platform three years ago.
The timing of my "conversion" to the Apple platform couldn't have come at a better time. Not only was the marketplace exploding with demand for those skills but, more importantly, Apple rescued me at a time when I was pretty disillusioned with technology.
While I started playing with computers at an early age, it's not my biggest passion. Computers and programming are really just a means to an end to me. It's not that I don't care about my craft, it's more that I care more about the end-product than the process to get there. Honestly I don't know how much longer I could have gone on feigning interest in algorithms and scalability. Don't get me wrong—they're important, but I'm not passionate about them.
When I came to the Apple platform I thought, finally somebody gave a damn about the person on the other side of the glass and I was happy to be a part of it. So all of this is a roundabout way of saying "thanks" to Mr. Jobs and the company and culture he helped build.