It’s my seventh year in the job, and I’m not getting as much positive feedback on the code I write. Let me reflect on how I ended up on this coding path. People’s choices, especially when they’re younger, tend to follow positive reinforcement more closely – actively avoiding harm and seeking benefit.

I. Childhood

Moving to the city and coming into contact with computer books? Hacker’s materials? Meeting Windows systems – these are all anecdotes.

The time should be positioned around childhood and sneaking around with my cousin to play games on our parents’ computer. My cousin and I ran a shop with our uncle at the computer store.

I started having exposure to computers relatively early, and basic understanding was established. Later, in school, taking the microcomputer course also sparked an interest.

In middle school, I heard about computer competitions, which seemed really cool, but after transferring schools, this fell by the wayside.

During my junior high years, I was familiar with basic computer operations, and I could easily stand out during microcomputer classes. If you’re still familiar, yes, you’ve noticed, it wasn’t proficiency – being familiar with office software would be even more impressive.

II. Moving / Relocation

Let’s revisit the moving situation. When we moved to the city center, due to the neighbors, we came into contact with the library. Although we read quite a few novels, we also read a lot of magazines, such as:

• Computer News
• 大众软件 (Greatest Software)

This led to an increasingly growing interest in computers as a product. The childhood fascination with hackers was actively pursued through relevant knowledge at school.

We learned the basics of operating systems: control panel, CMD commands, VBS scripts.

• Computer News is suitable for beginners; each time it explains system operations in the form of case studies.
• Greatest Software recommends various software, industry news, and of course, game news – this was the initial motivation, and it also planted the seed for gaming.

III. High School

When I was in high school, Bo Ge transferred to our class, and several seniors had been guaranteed admission through computer competitions in the previous two years. The school leaders also paid a lot of attention to this competition.

There was also a prerequisite hardware foundation – an alumnus from America donated a building to the school, which resulted in a new library and a new computer lab; it all seemed so coincidental.

Plus Bo Ge’s popular science lectures, he was considered the computer guru in our class at that time.

A scholar + computer expert, knew how to hack into other people’s computers and disable classroom surveillance software.

III. High School

The competitions were bumpy and ultimately ended in the finals, where I didn’t quite understand the material and the questions were mostly basic algorithms. However, it was still a worthwhile experience – like taking a short trip.

Four. University

Waiting for university major selection, I chose automation based on my parents’ recommendation, but I actually wanted to pursue electrical engineering, intending to join the power supply bureau upon graduation. I didn’t learn much in the courses of my major.

My self-driven learning ability was almost non-existent within the major courses; however, I found computer courses within the large curriculum very easy to grasp.

I attended classes for the major course while skipping lectures and diligently studied computer courses. I spent my daily time browsing forums: “JingYi Forum” (“I Love Crack”), Combining what I learned from that bit of assembly and C++ knowledge with the skills gained from taking on orders from the forums, I earned more positive feedback and went further and further down this path, unable to be pulled back.

Ultimately, the choice of a minor led me to choose writing code for chips, and my parents didn’t interfere much, letting me make my own decision. At that time, the third key figure: my cousin had a high education and worked at Baidu.

My elder sister understood me and knew that I hadn’t been focused on research back then, so she encouraged me to talk to my cousin.

I confirmed the future development path, didn’t go home during the summer vacation, followed my advisor to work on projects, and gained experience.

Thanks to my still-passable grades, I was admitted to Hengsheng Electronics.

Five. Graduation

Here’s a key point I know – I learned how to bypass firewalls, took elective courses in Computer Information Retrieval, and quickly found and located information and problems. A valuable colleague, Mr. [硕哥’s nickname], appeared at work, gave me time to learn independently, troubleshoot issues down to their roots, and introduced me to the leaders of the R&D center. These experiences laid the groundwork; in Shenzhen, everyone outside viewed me as exceptionally skilled, successfully leading the transaction channel group. That’s where the problem lies: I lacked systematic learning in computer operating systems, algorithms, and software engineering design. All my knowledge was based on my own past experience. This led to frequent self-doubt regarding my code designs, a lack of guidelines for module design, and ultimately, fatigue after seven years.