TITLE: I Fooled Around and Fell in Love
AUTHOR: Eugene Wallingford
DATE: June 05, 2013  1:52 PM
DESC: 
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BODY:
<P ALIGN="right">
   <EM>Cue the Elvin Bishop [
   <A HREF="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S4xszknaPuQ">
      video</A>
    ]</EM>...
</P>

I smile whenever I see this kind of statement on
<A HREF="http://www.girldevelopit.com/chapters/detroit">
   a website's About page</A>:

<BLOCKQUOTE><EM>
 Erika Carlson was studying clinical psychology in 2011, when
 she wrote her first line of Python code.  She fell in love
 with programming, decided to change paths, and is now a
 software developer at Pillar Technology.
</EM></BLOCKQUOTE>

I fell in love upon writing my first line of code, too.

Not everyone will have the same reaction Erika and I had,
but it's good that we give people at least an opportunity
to learn how to program.  Knowing that someone might react
this way focuses my mind on giving novice programmers a good
enough experience that they can, if they are so inclined.

My teaching should never get in the way of true love.
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