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Wiki code for BuhlerMemorialScholarship

1: <P ALIGN=center><FONT SIZE=+2>The following is the winning essay which \\
2: I wrote for the 1996 Buhler Memorial Scholarship:</FONT></P>\\
3: <BR>\\
4: <HR>\\
5: <P ALIGN="center"><FONT COLOR=#33BB33 SIZE=+3><B>Question:</B> What led \\
6: me to choose CS as a major and what are my future career plans?</FONT> \\
7: </P>\\
8: <P ALIGN="center"><FONT COLOR="#33BB33" SIZE=+1><B>by Geoff Fortytwo</B></FONT></P>\\
9: <P>Something big happened in 1985. Something happened that would have \\
10: far reaching effects in the lives of everyone in my family and which \\
11: would significantly alter the course of my own life. 1985 was the year \\
12: that my parents bought an Apple //e computer. My life would never be \\
13: the same. I was 10 years old when that historic computer entered my \\
14: life. Up until that time the only computer I had ever seen was my neighbor's \\
15: Commodore 64 which I had been rarely allowed to use. </P>\\
16: <P>My parents had purchased the computer for the usual reasons like word \\
17: processing and record keeping and its use was subject to strict control \\
18: because of my father's fear that the computer would break down if used \\
19: too much. (That fear was apparently unfounded because that faithful \\
20: old Apple //e is still working today, with no problems, over eleven \\
21: years from the day we bought it.)</P>\\
22: <P>My first uses of the computer were to play games, but as time went \\
23: on I discovered BASIC. <FONT COLOR="#000000">It seems to be a natural \\
24: evolution for young programmers to embrace some version of a Beginner's \\
25: All-purpose Symbolic Instruction Code and just as natural for "adolescent" \\
26: programmers to learn to despise it.</FONT></P>\\
27: <P>I felt pretty good about myself when I wrote my first BASIC program \\
28: which printed out my name in an infinite scrolling loop along the left \\
29: side of the screen. Later on I progressed to the point where I was able \\
30: to use control and input statements to create a program called "ICE \\
31: BREAKER" which was an interesting little program that gave the \\
32: user puzzles to solve and codes to break. </P>\\
33: <P>One of the more complex programs I wrote in BASIC was an Apple //e \\
34: version of the classic text game of Empire which I was introduced to \\
35: on some TRS-80's that my middle school used to teach typing courses. \\
36: My classmates were wowed when they saw the game because it was so much \\
37: like the game on the TRS-80 yet it didn't have the problem of crashing \\
38: after a short period of game play and it had a number of improvements \\
39: that I had added. </P>\\
40: <P>By 6th grade I had pretty much decided that I was headed for a career \\
41: as a hotshot computer programmer and as a true child programmer I was \\
42: able to apply my programming knowledge to good use. I was able to get \\
43: out of having to spend money on birthday and Christmas presents by writing \\
44: little programs that had my parent's name in them and displayed some \\
45: sort of birthday or Christmas greeting. An example was one where I had \\
46: an airplane fly across the screen on random lines with a message trailer \\
47: behind it which said, "Happy Birthday Mom!" </P>\\
48: <P>BASIC carried me through my years of enlightened childhood, but sadly, \\
49: at about the age of 15 I decided to put BASIC to rest. I had fallen \\
50: in love with another language. I had become attracted to C. What attracted \\
51: me most was the ability to separate code into things called functions. \\
52: From my point of view today, I consider functions to be obvious basic \\
53: necessities for programming of any type. Back then however, I was blown \\
54: away by the utter coolness of functions. The only support for functions \\
55: that Apple BASIC had at that time was a gosub instruction which allowed \\
56: for separation and reuse of code, but all variables were still global! \\
57: I attempted to buy a C compiler for the Apple //e, but when I asked \\
58: the shop keeper at Walden Software if he knew where I could get one, \\
59: he actually laughed at me! When he told me that none existed for the \\
60: Apple I was left wondering what to do. </P>\\
61: <P>What I finally ended up doing was to get my parents to allow me to \\
62: cash in the bonds that my dad had gotten using my birthday and Christmas \\
63: money from years past and use it all to buy a computer. The computer \\
64: turned out to be of rather poor quality, but it worked well enough to \\
65: run the Borland C++ 2.0 compiler for DOS. I only used it to learn to \\
66: program in C, but I was able to learn most of the basics of programming \\
67: in a truly useful high-level language. </P>\\
68: <P>I wrote some simple programs such as "Mad Chad the Rad Bad Lad \\
69: from Baghdad" and "Deadly Dungeon", but as I progressed \\
70: I wrote more serious and goal oriented programs. I labeled one such \\
71: program as a "Gravitational Vector Mapper" which computed \\
72: graphical maps which showed the relative strength of the gravitational \\
73: forces at different positions on the screen given a number of point \\
74: masses at specified locations. I wrote the Gravitational Vector Mapper \\
75: immediately before I entered college using C and a little bit of basic \\
76: C++. At that point I knew what objects, templates, constructors, and \\
77: destructors were and knew basically what operator overloading, and basic \\
78: inheritance was. Beyond that I only knew that there was a lot more to \\
79: learn about object oriented programming. </P>\\
80: <A NAME="reference_to_note1"></A> \\
81: <P>I continued to do some programming on my own outside of school, but \\
82: it wasn't until I took a continuing education class on C++ that my eyes \\
83: were opened to the true significance of object oriented programming. \\
84: In that class I was enlightened about the wonders of dynamic binding \\
85: and virtual inheritance <A HREF="#note1"><SUP><B>1</B></SUP></A>. My \\
86: interest in programming was energized and I haven't come down from the \\
87: clouds since.</P>\\
88: <P>There are many reasons that I enjoy programming so much. The central \\
89: reason seems to be that I'm addicted to the feeling of accomplishment \\
90: that I get when I see a program that I've written running smoothly. \\
91: The feeling that I've created something of my very own is one I cherish \\
92: greatly. Beyond the innate pleasure of creating something, I also enjoy \\
93: being able to show the result of my work to other people as proof that \\
94: the many hours, days, and weeks that I've invested in my personal projects \\
95: have actually produced something interesting, tangible, and possibly \\
96: even useful. </P>\\
97: <P>I've since upgraded my career goals from wanting to be a programmer \\
98: to wanting to be a software engineer. A software engineer is actually \\
99: a superset of a programmer. A software engineer is involved in both \\
100: designing and implementing software whereas a programmer merely implements \\
101: someone else's design or hacks code without any prior design at all. \\
102: I've learned the hard way how design is truly an important step in the \\
103: overall software creation process. </P>\\
104: <P>I hope that upon graduation from college I'll be able to start my career \\
105: doing something that I perceive to be important to the overall field \\
106: of computer science. I dread thinking about the possibility that I might \\
107: get stuck as a low level grunt worker who does nothing but update old \\
108: code for computers that are far past their prime. I dream of doing things \\
109: which would significantly effect the industry as a whole, but I realistically \\
110: hope to become part of a software engineering team which would work \\
111: to produce complex software for knowledgeable computer users. The specific \\
112: type of software which I would be helping to write isn't terribly important \\
113: as long as the software itself is important. </P>\\
114: <P>I've come a long way since my days with Apple //e BASIC and I hope \\
115: to go a lot further. I've put a lot of thought into where and with whom \\
116: I would eventually like to start my career and I'm certain that I will \\
117: put a lot more thought into it before I finally find my place. Above \\
118: all else though, I will never be satisfied in any career unless I end \\
119: up working on a team with many other talented, intelligent, hard working \\
120: computer scientists whom I can truly respect and admire. If I can achieve \\
121: that, then I will be truly happy.</P>\\
122: \\
123: <HR>\\
124: <CENTER>\\
125: <H2>FOOTNOTES</H2>\\
126: </CENTER>\\
127: <A NAME="note1"></A> \\
128: <P><A HREF="#reference_to_note1"><SUP><B>1</B></SUP></A> Actually, at the time I wrote this essay I did not know that I was actually referring to polymorphism.</P>\\
129: \\
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