RE: My age is

[mirod]

in reply to My age is

Oh so very funny!

Why did this poll have to start 3 days after my birthday, and why did you have to ask for a 36 and + category to be added when I just turned 36?

Oh why?

THat said, I'm glad to see a fair number of grey bearded monks here (and even more glad that my wife is an avid reader of cadfael novels, hence she likes my grey beard ;--)

[Malkavian]

Heh.. :) Well, assuming this poll has a lifespan of more than 5 days, my category's going to change...
Posted in the 26-30 category, and only just made it there by a whisker...
Guess I'll get to post in the 20-25 next.. :)

Malk

[cadfael]

THat said, I'm glad to see a fair number of grey bearded monks here (and even more glad that my wife is an avid reader of cadfael novels, hence she likes my grey beard ;--)

Maybe the reason there aren't as many of us greybeards is that many of us passed through high school and college without ever having the chance to take a programming course.

At my location (University of Missouri) there are a number of old farts like me who are largely self-taught, and an even larger number of younger programmers and sysadmins who grew up dreaming in (insert language of choice here).

They do keep us on our toes, though. I have learned a lot from working with some of the recent graduates.

Yes, and I also like the Cadfael mysteries, as does my wife. The first series of PBS Mystery! videos was pretty good, but the later series have been a little disappointing.

-----
"Computeri non cogitant, ergo non sunt"

[Albannach]

Maybe the reason there aren't as many of us greybeards is that many of us passed through high school and college without ever having the chance to take a programming course.

Now there's another potentially interesting poll topic - how many people here have had formal programming training?

In (civil) engineering school we had none, but there was an amusing pass/fail course in 2nd year in which each week you had 3 hours to write a program (on an Apple II) to implement some trivial calculation (e.g. plotting the bending moment diagram for a bridge as a truck passes over it). While I'd been fiddling with computers for years by then, the majority found it very difficult, and I still fail to see what it was to achieve apart from making neophytes into computerphobes.

I also recall a course in first year that had us doing a bit of Fortran IV on a PDP-11 via VC-404s, and from my observation it was just a way to justify new terminals as my classmates pretty well destroyed those 404s out of rage over the term.

(my hair is greying but my moustache ain't - go figure)

(ob. Cadfael comment: now replaying on CBC at midnight IIRC, great fun!)

[NodeReaper]

This node was taken out by the NodeReaper on Aug 18, 2008 at 00:06 UTC
Reason: [kyle]: reap junk

You may view the original node and the consideration vote tally.