When I was about 14, I wrote some software in QBasic to support the running of the school library. Hitherto, the library catalogue and loans had been stored in a spreadsheet. I replaced it with bespoke software.

Over the next couple of years, I iteratively tweaked the software based on feedback until I finished my GCSEs and left. I think I learned more from that process than from any computing course I’ve ever taken: I also came to love Greg Perry’s book QBasic by Example, which—ironically—wasn’t to be found in the library’s collection.

In my A-level computing course, I was required to write in Visual Basic instead. I remember finding this irritating, deriving much less satisfaction from developing software using a graphical user interface rather than a blank screen with an expectant blinking cursor. It felt like a little bit of power and control had been taken away, as though the final product wasn’t completely mine in the same way.

I’ve been thinking about that a lot lately. These days, there’s nothing I create from scratch as I did in QBasic. The closest thing is writing for this blog: it’s only here that I start with a blank screen and a blinking cursor. Only here do I exercise complete control over every word and every pixel.

I’m sometimes surprised at my own tenacity in keeping this blog up for more than two decades. It’s not for anyone else’s benefit that it continues to exist. I’m sure no one else would think twice if it disappeared tomorrow. Yet, I’ve published over 760,000 words here in nearly 3,000 posts over more than twenty years. I suppose it must scratch a creative itch, even if I struggle to explain precisely where that itch is located.

Maybe I’m just a control freak at heart.

The image at the top of this post was generated by DALL·E 3.