I'm spending the balance of the evening playing catch-up with the emails to come from the Derby user and development lists, and it occurs to me that the most important tool in computer programming is, without question, the internet itself.
When I think back to my toying with BASIC on the Apple IIe after school, it occurs to me that I had only a few resources, and those only some of the time:
- Asking the instructor(s), if they hadn't left for the day
- Making a nuisance of myself among the more serious student-coders
- Hoping that the FORTRAN book Mom picked up from UW-EC would at least point me in the direction of a lucky guess
I have to think that, despite the much reduced body of overall knowledge, many a programming career was cut short by sheer frustration. Fast-forward twenty five years, and I still feel like a poser. Except for my search engine querying--that's where I can claim to have mad skilz. ;-)
