About ten other young, male undergraduates regularly attended these sessions of midnight programming. It was a whole subculture. It's been popularized now, but it was a secret cult in my days, said Alsing. The game of programming-and it is a game-was so fascinating. We'd stay up all night and experience it. It really is like a drug, I think. A few of his fellow midnight programmers began to ignore their girlfriends and eventually lost them for the sake of playing with the machine all night. Some started sleeping days and missed all their classes, thereby ruining their grades. Alsing and a few others flunked out of school.
Alsing reminisces about the underground culture of late-night programming sessions he participated in during his college years. He describes it as a captivating game that drew together a group of young male undergraduates who would often stay up all night, lost in the world of coding. This experience was so intense that it began to feel addictive, consuming their attention and time.
As the obsession grew, the priorities of some programmers shifted dramatically. Relationships suffered, with some friends neglecting their girlfriends and ultimately losing them due to their commitment to programming. Additionally, many students began to miss classes, leading to poor academic performance, and some, including Alsing, faced the consequences of flunking out of school.
