这是我必须告诉爸爸的-在我们的时间用完之前 (This is what I must tell my dad — before our time runs out)

I was a young boy in the 1980s. Like the typical Generation-X kid, I grew up in the days of the home computer: the Commodore 64, the ZX Spectrum and the MSX.

我在1980年代还是个小男孩。像典型的X一代孩子一样，我在家用计算机时代就长大了：Commodore 64，ZX Spectrum和MSX。

I must have been around 10 years old when some of my classmates first got computers at home to play games on. Obviously I wanted one too. But these were the 1980s, and money was tight. My dad had 2 jobs to support the family, and computers were very expensive. Yet he promised to buy me one — on one condition: I would use it to learn how to program.

当我的一些同学第一次在家带电脑玩游戏时，我一定已经10岁左右。显然我也想要一个。但是那是1980年代，资金紧缺。我父亲有2个工作来养家，电脑非常昂贵。但是他答应要给我买一个，但要满足一个条件：我会用它来学习编程。

He bought me a Philips MSX2, with a mouse (which my classmates quickly dismissed as an absolutely pointless accessory — I should have gotten a joystick instead). We spent countless afternoons writing Basic code. First simple stuff — printing my name on the screen a hundred times. Later, more advanced things, like moving a 2D sprite across the screen using the arrow keys. The best sort of father-son quality time imaginable.

他给我买了带鼠标的Philips MSX2(我的同学很快就把它当作绝对没有意义的配件了-我本来应该用操纵杆代替的)。我们花了无数下午编写基本代码。首先简单的东西-在屏幕上打印我的名字一百次。后来，出现了更高级的事情，例如，使用箭头键在屏幕上移动2D精灵。可以想象的最好的父子质量时间。

My father is a gifted scientist by education, and was a well-loved high school teacher by profession. He had immediately embraced micro-computers for their inherent potential for educational purposes. He wrote books about it when MS-DOS was still in its infancy, and successfully continued to pursue his research and experiments on the subject until his retirement.

我的父亲是受过教育的有才华的科学家，并且是职业上受欢迎的高中老师。他立即拥抱微型计算机，因为它们具有教育用途的内在潜力。当MS-DOS仍处于婴儿期时，他就写过有关此书的书，并成功地继续从事有关该主题的研究和实验，直到退休为止。

I chose a different career: I became an interaction designer. A creative. A right-brain-thinker. At first glance, it may seem that this was the opposite of being a programmer. Yet, looking back at where I am right now as a UX designer, I can only conclude that — whether directly or indirectly — that I owe everything to the fact that he taught me how to write code thirty years ago.

我选择了不同的职业：我成为一名交互设计师。一个创意。 头脑敏捷的思想家 。乍一看，这似乎与成为程序员相反。但是，回顾一下我现在作为UX设计师的位置时，我只能得出结论，无论是直接还是间接地，我都应归功于他三十年前教我如何编写代码的事实。

Coding has allowed me to turn my ideas into actual working products, rather than just designs and dreams on a napkin. It has helped me test UX hypotheses by letting me create realistic prototypes. It has shown me how to work constructively and creatively with programmers and engineers. And, most of all, it has taught me how to tackle any problem by analyzing it and breaking it down into manageable little nibbles. I have eaten many elephants this way (one tiny bite at a time) and it has always given me a tremendous advantage in my life.

编码使我能够将想法变成实际的工作产品，而不仅仅是在餐巾纸上进行设计和实现梦想。通过让我创建逼真的原型，它帮助我测试了UX假设。它向我展示了如何与程序员和工程师进行建设性和创造性的合作。而且，最重要的是，它教会了我如何通过分析问题并将其分解为可管理的小块来解决任何问题。我以这种方式吃了很多大象 (一次只吃一口)，它一直给我带来巨大的生活优势。

I am fortunate to have a wonderful son myself, whom I will teach how to program, like my father did for me. I will do that, not because I want him to become a programmer or an IT guy, but because I believe that knowing how to write a piece of code brings together *many* crucial skills, which will benefit any clever kid in their pursuit of whatever career they choose. It is the proverbial gift that keeps on giving, and I will pass it on to my son.

我很幸运自己有了一个好儿子，就像父亲为我所做的那样，我将教给他如何编程。我之所以这样做，不是因为我希望他成为一名程序员或IT专家，而是因为我相信知道如何编写一段代码可以汇集*许多*关键技能，这将使任何聪明的孩子在追求知识的过程中受益。他们选择的职业。这是一直在奉献的谚语，我将把它传递给我的儿子。

I don’t think I have ever properly thanked my father for this, and unfortunately the time is drawing near that I will have to say goodbye to him for the last time. So while I still have the chance, I want to take this opportunity to thank him for offering me the most awesome deal a 10-year old boy could have made with his dad, and the wisest thing a man has ever done for his son.

我认为我从来没有为此而对父亲表示过适当的感谢，但是不幸的是，时间临近了，我将不得不最后一次跟他说再见。因此，尽管我仍然有机会，但我想借此机会感谢他为我提供了一个10岁大的男孩可以和他父亲达成的最了不起的协议，这是一个男人为儿子做过的最明智的事情。

Cheers dad!

爸爸，干杯！

– your proud son

–你骄傲的儿子