Can any self-taught programmers share how you learned programming?

That was a question asked on Quora. And this was my response:

"Got referred to a part-time Software Tester job in ’98 by a student I befriended in a French course — an elective — during my 3rd year in college as a Political Science major. The testing process was monotonous: you recorded what you did on the application being tested and then played that recording back using some products called Rational Recorder and Rose. How boring! So I tinkered around and found out that the test data was all captured as string values in a VBA script. Interesting.. this script thing! So I changed the string values, added my own, etc. and found that the scripts played back with the changed data. Oh wow! There was a product called Microsoft Access installed on my PC. I opened it — just like I had opened every other app that was installed on my PC — and wondered if I could capture the test data in this database thing and have the VBA script read data from that database instead. Few days later, I had VBA scripts that only had code in them. And it was much, much shorter and succinct code. But that code was using ADO — or was it Jet? — to now read test data values from an Access database. Yay! I enhanced the code so that it generated random test data values, even more test data values than what was originally captured, etc. The testing suddenly became much more dynamic. The whole team adapted my “technique”. I may have got a pat on the back. I don’t remember. At 21, I was too naive about receiving recognition, etc. I was only interested in girls, an used Oldsmobile Achieva that I had been eyeing and.. this coding thing!

I was mostly hanging out with the Indian community back then. And the H1-Bs were all on PowerBuilder and dissing a product called Visual Basic. Visual Basic? Hmm, sounds familiar. I looked around and, sure enough, there was a product called Visual Basic and it had a derivative called V..VB.. VBA! Which I had already worked with! Holy Cow! I remember thinking, “Those PowerBuilder guys have no idea what they are talking about.” Humph! Two months later, I had my MCP certification for passing the Microsoft Visual Basic Desktop Applications exam..back when Microsoft exams were simpler and to the point. By this time, I had made a very good friend who worked for State Street bank. His tools: Visual C++, Sybase, etc. His background: a Master’s in Aeronautics from IIT Chennai. Gulp! He had magazines called Microsoft Systems Journal lying around all over his place. Under the Hood by Matt Pietrek.. what’s that? Who’s that? Hooks? Multi-threading? Oh, how interesting. I wonder if I can make all that shit work with VB? My friend showed me his C++ code. Pointers, network sockets and shit. Look at that! But, oh man. And I had already dropped out of college. Could I ever get to his level?! I decided to find out for myself. I looked around on a budding website called Craigslist, interviewed for and got a VB6 programming job at a startup south of Boston. I was with that company for 10 years. Phew! Oh and..I am still great friends with my “C++ friend”. 20 years now. I was the photographer at his wedding!"

The delectable Simran

I do miss Simran's acting. Check out the segment at 1:23:36 to 1:23:38. Her sex appeal sometimes tended to undermine her remarkable abilities as an actress. But she always delivered when the script demanded an impact. Jyothika came closest to Simran's abilities but only later in her career. Simran was consistent from the beginning, a natural performer. Sneha was also pretty reliable all through her career. But I feel Sneha's total impact scenes were a much smaller number as she didn't always get juicy scripts like Simran did. Simran's dance skills were unrivaled though. At her peak, no other actress could touch her when it came time to let it rip. It was no surprise then that her physique never strayed out of shape at a time when many actresses in southern India always carried flab. But above all of Simran's abilities stood her ability to generate atmosphere, a rare, scene-stealing gift. As her career wound down in the mid-2000s, I also lost interest in newer Tamil movies as a more engaging lifestyle in the US emerged. So I can't tell how these actresses are faring today. Of course, I still return to these older movies from the 90s now and then.

Simran's dance skills were unrivaled.

Calling the folks

Calling the folks up weekly. My goodness, what a tedious thing to do. Once the usual greetings have gone by, it is time for an awkward exchange of status,

"So.. how are things?"

Wait! Isn't that the same question posited to me last week.. and the week before that? Well, the answer is the bloody same. The worst thing people of any age can do is sit at home all day long and watch soap operas. I envy those few friends of mine whose parents lead a full life. Now those folks have their own thing going with a steady, even if unremarkable, circle of friends and acquaintances, one or two of who are sure to breathe their last in the next 12 months. But, more importantly, these folks have engaged themselves in lifelong pursuits of interesting things outside of familial commitments. They have long cultivated a mindset of doing and staying engaged.

One parent picked up painting after she retired from being a school teacher for 30 years and now teaches painting. Another picked up rifle marksmanship after being a Software Engineer at IBM for 32 years and now he is winning regional-level competitions. These folks may not bungee jump or sky-dive but they sure do play golf, ski and simply travel. You don't need to get a degree or a permit from city hall to do those things. These folks rarely have a need to call their kids other than to check up on their Thanksgiving or Fourth of July travel plans. They also don't haunt their kids on Facebook or Whatsapp.

So what's the answer? I am taking a course at UMASS Boston called Women of Modern China. In the course, I have learnt about how Chinese school teachers instill in their students rules of living.. one of them is referred to as filial piety. It's a fancy term for allowing your elderly folks to live with you and taking care of them in their old age. I see it as the Chinese government's way of washing their hands of the matter of taking care of an aging population and essentially offloading the problem onto their kids. This is not a new "concept". The ancient Greeks considered it a duty for a person to take care of their aging parents. But, in today's world, these are ultimately defeatist methods. With so many activities to do, places to visit and things to accomplish, people want to spend their time exploring, doing and mastering things instead of being tied down to a monotonous existence. How many new parents today get this?

I do think that enlightened children should take some time to educate their parents on these things. But from personal experience, I know that simply advising parents to do this or that won't be enough. They are just too set in their ways and inertia would have rendered them resistant to change. So.. they would first need to be led around by hand to witness new experiences as this is something they will gladly do. After all, it is another opportunity to spend time with their "kids", right? The real idea is to instill in them the belief that it takes very little in terms of both cost and effort to be able to experience new things on their own. The other thing that people should do is put their parents through a fitness regimen at the earliest. I worked with mine in the basement of their home and taught them to lift weights through weekly visits. But the moment I stopped doing that, they stopped as well. My inspiration to work with them was to get them familiar with an activity that will allow them to become fitter and stronger. If they were independent, healthy and mobile in their old age then that's a bonus for everyone. That was my thinking. After one more attempt at getting them fit, which lasted another several weeks, I gave up. To their credit, they now maintain a semblance of fitness in their lifestyle. It is nowhere near what they should be doing but it is better than nothing. More importantly, it has given me a clear conscience because I have assisted them in a few productive ways.

Once children become adults, parents should step aside. It should be like humans' relationship to diary. You grow up using a lot of diary in the form of cereal breakfasts and, of course, just a plain glass of milk. Then, once beyond college, you switch to adult beverages like beer and adult foods like steak and eggs. Once in a while you can indulge in a little cheese but you largely move on to foods that reflect your status as an adult. This is how relationships with parents should be. You get together for a couple of festivals or somebody's wedding or funeral and spend a few days together well. Then you get back to your separate worlds. Need to take the folks for an important appointment with a doctor? I don't mind doing that because I do not want them feeling destitute and this sort of thing keeps me grounded. And there's going to be a lot of such get-togethers, for better or worse, because you are going to know your children for a lifetime. In the meanwhile, what's the need for these regular phone calls? Oh, they make the folks happy. Well, why are they miserable in the first place?

"Heller in Pink Tights" - A brief movie review

What an awful "adaptation" of Louis L'Amour's excellent Heller with a Gun. I suppose the movie could stand on its own right if you have never read the book. But if you have read the book.. 57 times.. since your teenage years.. like I have, you will be disappointed. The book has a serious, sometimes dark theme while the movie is marred by facetiousness. The exciting opening gambit in the book sets a tone that is then consistently carried throughout the book. This gambit is completely missing in the movie. The book's location involves travel through dense woods in deep winter in Wyoming territory but the movie looks like it was filmed in the sand hills of Utah during early summer. Snow makes an appearance for about two minutes.. could have been that the technology available at that time did not allow for cold weather filming. Character development, if any, is uneven in the movie and takes away from the dignity -- and humanity -- of some of the characters in the book. When the serious scenes do seep in about halfway in, they evoke guffaws. Sophia Loren gets top billing and the first third of the movie revolves around her "cuteness". There is more to the character of Dodie -- labeled as Della in the movie -- but that is never captured in the movie. Anthony Quinn picks up a paycheck. The baddies are complete caricatures. I really have no idea what kind of inspiration the filmmakers had when this project was green-lighted. But it turns out to be another disposable western with no re-watch value. Enjoy the book when you don't have anything going on a Sunday afternoon. But skip the movie.

Ennio Morricone's Moscow Farewell (from Mosca Addio) - A Brief Music Insight

I first listened to this piece of music in the late 90s as part of some compilation music CD. Didn't think much of it. Came back to it a year later. Didn't think much of it. Came back to it a while later. It struck a chord then. It made me wonder. Could it have been composed for a love scene? Imagination took hold. Two people who meet in a bar go to his place. Or her place. There is no hesitation. No awkwardness. No wasted chit chat. All that was already done. They know what they want. They have done it before. They start making love. More gentle than rough. Like it was something more than the sex that they both needed this time. Vulnerabilities abound. They are noticed. And accepted. The rest of the city starts to switch off. It starts snowing. Probably the next morning, the roads will be full of the brown stuff on the sidewalks and snarling rush hour traffic and office worker bees clamoring in and out of their favorite coffee shops. But the lovers are not thinking of those things now. They are experiencing a different world.

Well, I just found this music on YouTube. So much for imagination. Turns out to be an Italian movie with a Russian theme. It looks like this music might have been played during the climax. Different kind of climax than what I had had in mind for twenty years. I am not familiar with Italian cinema. So an Italian movie about Russia is an odd combination for me. Like the guitar and the sax in the music itself. Maybe there is more to Italy than soccer and the Tuscan sun and Professor Langdon running around. Rome in her heyday. The premise of the movie is intriguing enough that I don't want to watch it. Lest it ruin my impression of the music. And the music itself is as fresh as when I first heard it twenty years ago. There are only a few instruments involved. Its minimalist music at its best. Full of clarity. Like a lone blue flower against a black background. The only other composer who could have rivaled Ennio Morricone on this back in the day would have been Jerry Goldsmith. Maybe Alan Silvestri on a good day. Today, it would be Hans Zimmer. Any day. This is not music for the headphones. As that indicates physical presence in a distracting environment. Like in a green line train. This is music meant to fill a living room. This requires tower speakers. And a center channel speaker. Tiny and humongous living rooms. With the cat in its own world. Doesn't matter. It may all be too melancholic for most people in the end.

Superb Scrambled Eggs

This is a really quick way to enjoy a delicious meal of eggs in a multi-dimensional way.

Prep Time: 5 minutes
Cook Time: 3 minutes

Step 1: Break three eggs into a bowl. Add a tablespoon of cream. Add a pinch of turmeric. Start beating this mixture up until the whole thing looks creamy like in the below picture. I use coffee creamer.

Note: I use a dessert fork for the beating as both the tines and the head of the fork penetrate the mixture completely and the intended creamy effect happens in just over a minute. By all means, use an egg beater.

Step 2: Put a skillet on slightly less than medium heat -- 4 out of 10 setting -- and spray it generously with Pam. While the skillet heats up, go back to beating the eggs and/or cutting onions. You don't want that egg mixture "settling down".

Note: I buy already cut onions. I prefer red onions for this particular recipe.

Step 3: Once you see a little bit of smoke coming off the skillet, add the cut onions to skillet. Add a half teaspoon of red chili flakes. Add a half teaspoon of salt. Start stirring.

Note: The half teaspoon is an initial recommendation. Adjust that to your taste as the recipe grows on you.

Step 4: Once the onions start turning golden brown, add the beaten eggs to the skillet. Wait until the egg mix distributes itself evenly over the skillet. Then grind black pepper onto the egg mix as a straggly thin layer. Start stirring as soon as you finish adding the pepper. Keep stirring.

Step 5: When only about 50% of moisture can be spotted in the eggs, turn off the heat. Then keep stirring as the eggs continue to cook in the residual heat. When only about 0.99% moisture can be spotted, take the skillet off the stove. Transfer the scrambled eggs to a serving dish.

Note: You will get good at spotting the moisture left after a couple of attempts at cooking eggs in general.

The MBTA's "Adopt a Track" Winter Program Takes Effect

February 2015

"The MBTA has introduced a winter sustainability program called "Adopt a Track". The primary purpose of this program is to allow local businesses to help the MBTA out in maintaining a certain portion of subway tracks during inclement weather. This, in turn, is expected to significantly ease the burden on the MBTA's regular employees. The MBTA worker's union has graciously agreed to let this program be test-driven for the next three years but on the condition that current MBTA compensations do not change during the course of this test-drive. The program took effect yesterday. In return for their sponsorship, participating local businesses will receive discounted winter fares for their employees and year-round sign branding at highly preferred spots in the sponsored areas. Not all of the MBTA's tracks will be a part of this program. Initially, this program will be test-driven on those portions of tracks and any stations that lie on those tracks which have been identified as extremely vulnerable to inclement weather.

A month ago, the MBTA started approaching local businesses with a large number of employees who rely on public transportation for their commutes. The MBTA has said that about a dozen businesses have shown an interest in this program and that a review panel is currently in the process of choosing sponsors. "By the end of this week, we will have chosen sponsors based on their own track record in being prepared for and doing a job right the first time around.", said an MBTA spokesperson, "We are seriously looking at companies with good work cultures and hands-on management. Given our own situation, we don't want to come across as too picky. But we want this program to work. We need this program to work. So we might as well plan and execute it carefully." The spokesperson said that the MBTA worker's union already has a team standing by to assist the chosen sponsors in rapidly putting together a contingency plan. "We will be ready for the next snow storm." the spokesperson said, "Bring it on.""

It is understood that the "Adopt a Track" program will allow regular MBTA employees to focus on just their core tasks while allowing the MBTA itself to redirect some of its revenues, which it might otherwise have used for dealing with inclement weather and fixing failed equipment, to finally start paying off the principal in its long-standing debt.

June 2018

The MBTA and it's worker's union made a joint announcement that the "Adopt a Track" winter program has been extended by another seven years. The program originally test-driven for three winters has been a resounding success, according to the MBTA.

"We saw immediate fruition with this program in 2015 when two major snowstorms, that followed in the heels of that winter's first storm Juno, did not disrupt MBTA services as winter storm Juno had done." said an MBTA spokesperson, "In the ensuing two winters, this was the case as well as MBTA services only experienced the occasional minor delay despite several major snow storms in each of those winters.

Our regular employees were very happy when they were able to operate trains and stations without having to worry about maintenance work." gushed an MBTA spokesperson, "Most of the equipment that had failed during Juno have not failed since as our Sponsors have stayed on top of these storms. We are now able to consistently keep our tracks and equipment clear of snow and ice. And, for the first time in years, we are receiving more favorable than negative reviews from our commuters."

"And we have been able to pay off $xyz amount of debt. It's a dent in the overall amount we have still to pay off. But it's a huge step in the right direction."

The Boston area has seen a noticeably renewed amount of economic activity since the "Adopt a Track" winter program took effect. In a recent poll conducted by Blasted News, 83% of pollsters gave the MBTA a thumbs-up for reliable services. "That's unprecedented. I think the MBTA finally got something right." said Fook Me, a Professor of Transport Studies at the University of Boston, "This program has caused local businesses and the MBTA to develop a sort of emotional investment in each other. ""