Colossally stupid
Learning Python is fun.
A lot of fun, reading about new things, and trying them out. And enjoying all the new revelations as they dawn upon me... yeah, usually things don't strike me, they dawn upon me gradually. But its "Yippeeeee"
There was a time in Purdue when I took an operating systems course with heavy project load without ever having programmed in C before, without ever having seen a Unix system before. Starting my project I sat before the computer wondering just where to write the program in a terminal till someone came by and said - just use vi - as if I was pondering on an editor choice. What he didn't know was, I didn't know what vi was or meant, or how to open it, or anything about it till I saw him type vi at the prompt and open an editor.
Wow, that was something colossally stupid. While my peers were wrangling through OS concepts in the project, I was grappling with the very basics. I remember compiling my first ever program. The compiler spewed like a few pages worth of errors and finally said "Too many errors, bailing out....". Poor compiler. I figured that "not failing" would be exceeds expectations for this course. :) It was a pretty lousy time.
Well, I am glad I took that course. Not because, eventually, I learnt C, learnt programming, loved vi, got my head around Unix. No. Very very much in retrospect, I figured that taking a risk to the point of failure is incredibly stupid and taxing, it makes you tremble and wrenches your heart, but one should do that occasionally.
Because it gives you a jolt. And thats when the whole of your mind concentrates wonderfully and you figure that you have a lot more than what you thought you had. And, not all life's stories have a happy end but its the journey that teaches you a lot about yourself. And thats not worth missing.
A lot of fun, reading about new things, and trying them out. And enjoying all the new revelations as they dawn upon me... yeah, usually things don't strike me, they dawn upon me gradually. But its "Yippeeeee"
There was a time in Purdue when I took an operating systems course with heavy project load without ever having programmed in C before, without ever having seen a Unix system before. Starting my project I sat before the computer wondering just where to write the program in a terminal till someone came by and said - just use vi - as if I was pondering on an editor choice. What he didn't know was, I didn't know what vi was or meant, or how to open it, or anything about it till I saw him type vi at the prompt and open an editor.
Wow, that was something colossally stupid. While my peers were wrangling through OS concepts in the project, I was grappling with the very basics. I remember compiling my first ever program. The compiler spewed like a few pages worth of errors and finally said "Too many errors, bailing out....". Poor compiler. I figured that "not failing" would be exceeds expectations for this course. :) It was a pretty lousy time.
Well, I am glad I took that course. Not because, eventually, I learnt C, learnt programming, loved vi, got my head around Unix. No. Very very much in retrospect, I figured that taking a risk to the point of failure is incredibly stupid and taxing, it makes you tremble and wrenches your heart, but one should do that occasionally.
Because it gives you a jolt. And thats when the whole of your mind concentrates wonderfully and you figure that you have a lot more than what you thought you had. And, not all life's stories have a happy end but its the journey that teaches you a lot about yourself. And thats not worth missing.
Comments
I remember going through the same feelings in my first computer assignment. Here I was, with no idea of what files, directories, editors, etc., were, and we were told to "just use vi". I remember someone asking the TA how to delete a line in vi, and I thought, "You can delete a whole line?"
Of course, in hindsight, almost all our hard experiences were worth the pain and effort that went into them. The trick is to be either stupid enough to not care and keep trying, or to be prudent enough to realize which life experiences will result only in pain. (With Lotus Notes, none of the two points above applied to me.)
And of course, Harish Karnick (the first course on computers) was teaching about "doing cd and moving to a different directory". I actually thought the chair will move to a different place, and had many many questions about the viability and logistics etc. This is one of the few moments in classes, where I think I did the right thing by not asking questions :)
So.. back to languages. If I had to learn one language now, it would probably be Lisp. Since I have heard so much about its power. I am sure some of it is because I hung out with the CMU's machine learning geeks, but there must be something in it for the rest of us.
So Snehal, if you get time, learn that one and teach me a little about it :)