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I've been troubled by this very same concern for years now. You see, when I was a young lass, I always wanted more games. Back in those days, computer magazines were treasure troves of source code. There were countless new games hiding inside the covers, if you were willing to invest the time necessary to do some typing.
One day, as I was typing in the source code, my head exploded. I realized, all of a sudden, that I understood all of this arcane gibberish I was typing into the computer. It made sense to me. I started to change the code, and experiment. I started grabbing books on BASIC, and learning. I knew how to make the computer do new things. It was the biggest power trip a girl could have.
Today, I'm still typing in game code, but that's because I'm a senior game systems programmer. It's probably fair to say that I would not have the career I have today, had it not been for the ready availability of source code in my childhood. Even though my sister is also a programmer, it's unlikely that her daughter will serendipitously stumble into programming, as I did. I seriously wonder how any child would do so, these days.
