After struggling through COS 126 to satisfy the computing requirement, I thought I was done with programming forever. Boy, was I wrong! It kept coming back to haunt me through Senior Year and now, my job requires me to be proficient in JAVA and MATLAB so I can design and model policy decisions using system dynamics (why didn't it say so in the job description?!) :'(
Yes, programming is useful and I respect and admire people who can program, who think like programmers. I've been told, it's intuitive- there's only so much one can learn from books and the internet. But the problem is, I don't want to learn! It simply doesn't interest me... my brain refuses to think like a programmer. And it's super-frustrating, staring at lines and lines of code for hours only to discover that I left out a semicolon or used parentheses instead of square brackets :P... Plus, everyone expects me to know it (after all, I studied engineering at Pton and people from there are supposed to be smart...)
But no, I shall not let it conquer my indomitable spirit... I shall stay up all night learning JAVA even if I'd rather be baking apple-pie for my (non-existent) farmer-husband coming home after a day of hard work.
And here's a cutesy quote:
"As you ramble through life whatever be your goal, keep your eyes upon the doughnut and not upon the hole."
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if only you had caught me about 3 years early... i could have helped... if just for the sake of keeping my own programmin skills in java and matlab going...
ReplyDeleteunfortunately been three years since i have touched either... a bit more actually !
ps... i love programming... it is so coooool
a bit like writing you know... when you write a story.. you are the GOD of that story.. whateva happens is what you tell it to happen
similar is programming... you suddenly become GOD of what program you are writing... !
Wow... I'm like... all impressed :). I'd enjoy writing if I actually understood the language, sadly, that is not the case.
ReplyDeletewell... u r sayin programmin is not at all known to u.. how can that be ?
ReplyDeleteit's like copying sentences written in another language... you know how to "write" but you don't get what it means, i know how to write for loops and functions to make the planets spins to 2001: A Space Odyssey :S(does that count?)
ReplyDeletewelll thats a start isnt it
ReplyDeletei think you are struggling with object oriented programming..
is that right?
(i used to teach java to kids at my uni... lol)
spot on! i'm trying to compare NPV and IRR values for investments over a period of time, so writing functions for that- except, i'm not quite sure if i should be using arrays or collection variables (they both basically do the same thing...).... arrrgh! *tears of frustration*
ReplyDeleteawww... i seriously feel like helpin ya... maybe some day we can have a white board session online or somthin..
ReplyDeleteon msn or somthin...
you just need to learn to visualize things a certain way.. and from then on it becomes a breeze :)
thanks... that would be great! i think it's mostly not knowing how to do certain things... like accessing arraylists from another class :S
ReplyDeleteHMM... at the moment that does not ring a bell... lol... ages since i played with those things.. but yea.. feel free to mail me or whateva... :)
ReplyDeleteI know I might regret having said this, but MATLAB was a turn-on!
ReplyDeleteYou took COS 126 to satisfy the requirement? I did something similar - I don't remember the number, but it was the easiest COS class offered. I am definitely not an intuitive programmer - or at least, I wasn't then. It all seemed like giberish to me!
ReplyDeleteoh i jus lovvvvvvvvvv matlab :D
ReplyDelete@ Absar, ummm... ok, maybe for people like you :)
ReplyDelete@ Mishi, I know what you mean...!
@ AS, ouch :O