All of our students are thoroughly gruntled.

After 15 years of a very bad work situation, I am continuously pleased with my current one.  In my old job, I seemed to be eternally surrounded by very unhappy students that argued incessantly, complained to the administration, and bordered on illegal harassment when they dealt with faculty.  Some of the department faculty were, let's face it, nuts.  Department meetings could and did sometimes turn into agitated arguments.  And,the last dean I worked for was so bad that I referred to him as the Antichrist.

This college is SO much different.  This is my third year.  I have had only two instances of disgruntled students.  In May of last year, right after (note: after) the final exams, I was approached by a group of football playing students who wanted a C so they could stay on the team.  Their grades were very much buried in the F range, so there was nothing I could do.  This semester, I have an on-line student who likes to complain, but he lives about 100 miles from the campus, so I doubt I will ever see him in person.  I'll just get complaining email, and I can certainly deal with that.  These 2 situations simply highlight how nice the vast majority of my students are.  My co-workers are pleasant, the departmental evironment is nice, the chair is both nice and smart.  My office is nice, with a great view out of my window.  I am currently in the process of applying for tenure, and I just found out that 4 of the 6 approvals I need have already been submitted.  I have received a raise both last fall and the fall before.  If I get tenure, I will also get a promotion and another pay raise. 

The area is great, also.  One unexpected perk is that my car insurance cost was cut in half. Also, my commute time went from 45 minutes to 5 minutes. 

Why didn't I come here a long time ago?  

Hail Mary, Full of Grace--A Football Reflection.

As the time for the Superbowl approaches, I am reminded of a football story you probably don't know.  (And after you read this, you still won't.)

Christians are familiar with the passage in Luke where Mary is told she will bear the Messiah.  In the passage, the angel begins with "Hail, Mary, full of grace."  Of course, many Christian churches, particularly Catholic, interpret the phrase "full of grace" as having theological meaning.  However, it is a little known fact that the phrase "full of grace" was applied to Mary before she was addressed by the angel.

What is known now as American style football was played in ancient times, and teams had both men and women on them.  Mary was a star wide receiver for the Jerusalem Giants, and was quite famous for her ability to evade defenders.  Hence, the nickname "full of grace", as she gracefully zigged and zagged down the gridiron, rolling off tackles with ease.  The Giants' colors were blue and white, which is why we often see her depicted in those colors in works of art. 

Of course, knowling that marriage and motherhood would put too many demands of her time, Mary retired from football at the peak of her game.  But the phrase "full of grace" lives on. 

Some people think that she played for the Cairo Camels while she was living in Egypt, but there is absolutely no historical evidince for that. 

That's 14

In my previous post, I listed all (I thought) the programming languages I have learned.  In a lecture this morning, I talked about another language I learned and used on the job, and realized that I had forgotten to list it.  It's the old RPG language.  RPG stands for Report Program Generator, though I understand it also stands for Rocket Propelled Grenade.  They both blow up, so that's OK.  That's 14 languages in 41 years, or an average of one new language every 2.9 years. 

I still see jobs listed for RPG programmers.  An RPG program is easy to write but impossible to maintain.   My advise is to avoid RPG like it was the stomach flu.

No more, thanks

It was 41 years ago this month that I wrote my first program. It was in Fortran IV, as I started my undergraduate course in programming.  About a year later, I got my first programming job, using Fortran IV.

Then, I realized that if I were to ever work someplace else, I needed to learn Cobol, the language of choice at that time for implementing business systems. So, I took a class in Cobol.  I used Cobol in my next job extensively.

At that time, the experts were predicting that a new language called PL/I would replace both Fortran and Cobol.  A large university nearby switched the undergraduate curriculum to PL/I. So, I bought a book about PL/I and studied it, though it fell into disuse almost immediately, and I never used it in a job environment.

I also took a class in assembler, which was required for a degree that I started but did not complete until many years later.  It was IBM 360 assembler, which was widely used at the time.  Now, the 360 is gone, and the assembler with it.

About this time, the PC revolution was underway.  Most PCs at that time came with Basic compilers (the old, original Basic).  To write for PCs required mastery of Basic.  So, I learned Basic for my night job writing for PCs.  After that project was over, I never used the old Basic again.

I got a new day job, which started using Cobol.  Then, we obtained a system from a third party that was written in Pascal, so I learned Pascal.  Pascal was a very good language, but had a short run.  Now, no one uses Pascal, and younger people have never heard of it.  In our shop, and most others, Cobol fell by the wayside, and is now never used for new systems in most places.

My job was in a Hewlett-Packard shop.  That company had developed an excellent language called Transact.  I learned Transact and used it for years.  But, it fell by the wayside, also.

I went back to graduate school and was required to use the language C.  The problem with C was that too many people tried to use it for purposes for which it was not designed.  C is now used less and less. 

At my first full time teaching position, I was assigned the beginning programming course.  I started using Fortran 90 (similar to Fortran IV, but with modern block structures) because the syntax is so simple.  But the chair didn't like my choice, and I was told to switch to Java,  So I learned Java. 

I also taught computer organization, and the book used MIPS assembler.  So, I learned MIPS assembler. 

When I got my current teaching job, I was required to learn two more programming languages, Alice and Visual Basic (VB).  This last language only bears a very slight resemblance to old Basic, so I count it as a new language, especially since at this school, anyway, it requires the mastery of a development environment, Visual Studio, which is more complicated than VB.

So, let's count the languages.  Fortran IV, Cobol, PL/I, 360 assembler, Basic, Pascal, Transact, C, Fortran 90, Java, MIPS assembler, Alice, and VB.  That's 13 languages.  Currently, I only use the last 3.  Java is still around, but I don't currently teach it.  Most of the other languages are dead or dying, and I will probably never even see them again, never mind use them. 

Yesterday I was attending a training/orientation session to prepare this school to become a "hub" for high school robotics contests.  The robot controllers are programmed by a language called EasyC.  For some reason, one of the participants wanted me to become the EasyC expert here.  I found myself saying "no."  Fortunately, another faculty member present was eager and delighted to become the EasyC expert, and I was eager for her (and not me) to be "delighted."  Problem solved. 

I am basically sick to death of spending hours and hours of work on obtaining a skilll that becomes almost immediately useless.  I started thinking about the many languages I have learned, some good, some bad, but most now useless to me.  An experienced person can learn the essentials of a language quickly, but it takes years of use to really understand all the quirks and tricks, and how to really use it well.  I'm tired of it getting really good at a language, then being forced to abandon it.  I have taken the attitude that I will only learn a new language if I really, really must.  EasyC did not qualify, I don't care how "easy" it is.  You may notice that C++ is not on my list, and that's why.  Only if I must.  Time to cut my losses. 

Sad day in Arizona.

I have been following the events and aftermath of the Arizona shooting this last weekend.  I have been particularly dismayed by folks critical of the suspect's parents, stating that they should have seen it coming and done something about it.  First, I'm sure they did know that there was something amiss with their son, though how much detail they knew, such as from a medical diagnosis, has not been made public.  However, from what I have been able to glean from the news, he had never been violent before this, and had not even talked about being violent until very recently.  For an adult (he was 22) family member, it is very, very hard for family members to find anything that can be "done" is such situations. I have had some small experiences in this area.  Unless you can demonstrate that the person is a danger to himself or others in some convincing way, there is generally nothing at all that his parents could have done, no matter how bizzare the young man was acting, or how alarmed his parents might have been.  There is no law against being bizzare or irrational, and an adult cannot be compelled into psychiatric treatment in most circumstances. 

My heart goes out to all victims and their families, including the suspect's friends and family. 

Winter to Summer to Winter

I'm back from my 3 legged holiday trip.  I left here (winter) on the 22nd, flew to Phoenix (summer) to spend several days with my son and his wife and her family and had a GREAT time, then flew to Bozeman, MT (winter again) to spend several days with my cousin, her son and family and had a GREAT time again.  Now, I'm home and totally exhausted, but glad I went.  Each flight required me to awaken at 3:00 or 4:00 a.m. or thereabouts, and of course, I can't really sleep well on the plane, and I didn't want to waste precious visiting time in napping, so I am trying to get caught up now. 

On the flight home from Bozeman, we were delayed getting off the ground because it took more time than anticipated to clear the runway of several inches of snow, and then de-ice us.  So, we were sitting on the tarmac for 45 minutes.  It was warm, quiet, and dark, so I dozed off.  I woke myself with a particularly loud snore from my own nose, followed by everyone on the plane giggling.  I guess I'm glad I gave everyone a laugh, but I'm glad the plane was dark!!!