Mr Hook's Big Black Box

Kris Alexandros: The Prodigy

As a youth, I probably wasn't the successful figure you might expect. My village was remote, far from any large town, and the people there mostly self-sufficient. I studied with my father, to follow in his footsteps as an apprentice. He was an honest tradesman, I think you know the kind of man I mean. He had distanced himself to some degree from other parts of our family, because he wanted to lead a simple life. He made what he sold, and he sold the work of his own hands, and he was successful within the village just for his skills and talents. That was the life he wanted, and I might have been happy to follow.

But I lived at the right time, when the whole world was starting to become connected. I think I was the first of my friends to seriously look at what a computer could be used for. It wasn't like it is today, some people didn't even have a computer. Some families didn't even have one between them. But my parents had a computer to do the finances, and I was permitted to play games and to type my homework for school, as long as I promised never to touch the baroque spreadsheet that was Father's business. But I wasn't satisfied with games, I wanted to see what else this wonderful machine could do. So I used libraries, and later every source of research I could find. I learned to make the computer do what I wanted, rather than just choosing one of the options it proffered.

I made my parents a webpage for their business, back in the very early days of the Internet. They didn't get it, really, they were quite old-fashioned, but they were happy to indulge my interests. I made them a better spreadsheet for tracking their sales and income, and though they were reluctant at first, they found it useful. I helped other people, our neighbours and our family, and they started to realise the kind of prodigy I was.

Except I wasn't, I really wasn't. I read books. I pleaded my parents to sign us up for an online service. I read online, extensively. I tried to do things, and found what worked. I was able to help friends of the family, in this tiny village in the middle of the country, but they were only impressed because the village was a little behind the times, and nobody had seen skills of that kind before. If I'd been a carpenter, I would have made the shape I wanted and then kept nailing on planks until it stayed upright. Bad programming can go the same way, but to people who don't know it at all, they can't see how bad the structure is.

But, I was the child prodigy, I knew everything about computers. And without other programmers to bounce off, I didn't realise that what I was doing wasn't the right way to do it. So when I came of age, of course they wanted to send me to the university. I was going to take the world by storm, because I didn't know the depths of my ignorance. My parents scrimped and saved, and when their store did well they would set a little wealth aside for my college fund. It was expensive, you might imagine. Even the cost of travelling so far from home was a challenge. But we could do it. Nothing was too much for the prodigal son.

I took an entrance exam, and got a tentative offer of a place. I went to university, and studied as hard as I could manage for a year. And then I took the end of year examinations, and I failed. I hadn't learned, because I had so much experience of my family and my neighbours telling me how incredible I was. I had become too proud to throw away my hard-won methods and learn the right way; I assumed that when it came to a test of skills, I would still be ahead of their expectations, and that the methodical techniques and design patterns were a crutch, unnecessary for one with true talent.

I would have to go back to my parents, and tell them that I had squandered their nest egg because I was too proud to admit my ignorance. But then I spoke to my Uncle Sal, and he told me never to give up. He showed me another path. I could apply again, to a college built on a different education system, overseas where nobody would see what I had learned before. I could do a foundation year to learn what I had missed, and start over. My parents did not need to fill their home with shame, I simply told them that I was going to complete my course abroad, and they were so proud of that. The genius who is hunted by every college, they thought. I knew they weren't too comfortable to have Sal help me with the travel expenses, but to see me on the world stage, they didn't voice their objection.

So my whole education was a lie. I came here as a foreign student, but the reasons behind it were that I had already failed. I had to forget all I had learned, and approach the foundation year as a complete beginner. And I did it, I succeeded. I still found it hard, but I was able to learn to do things the right way, and take a few first steps towards being the genius that my family thought I was.