Engineering Computer Programming

I knew this course was going to be tough. Even with my experience from two years of computer science in high school, I was nervous about this course from the beginning. It's a self-paced computer programming course required for all mechanical engineering majors. I've managed to avoid it until now, and I regret that decision greatly. It has been a very difficult evening working on the first lesson, but the professor's tutorial has been a great help indeed. I will now share a few pearls of wisdom from his tutorials.

"If I had one wish for you, it would be that you would NEVER meet the debugger, but alas that is not to be."

"Please do NOT read [the textbook] until told to do so."

"C is a very complicated computer language, especially for someone who has never done any programming before, and there is a wealth of reading that you will have to do. But if you start too soon, you will get very discouraged."

"By the way, don’t ask any of your professors to write an application for their own computers. Most cannot."

"Remember, if something goes wrong, you can always restart your computer."

"Mathematicians are crazy!"

"Don't quote me"

"It says: Mr. Computer please go to the library called io"

"Kind of like an Easter egg hunt."

"Remember I'm pretty sneaky"

"He said that a computer was a good slave--it did exactly what you ask it to do, no more and no less."

"Computer programming is not a spectator sport."

"but this one error can cause the debugger to go off on a wild goose chase."

"He has a special window on your computer where he lives and does his work. He prints out his thoughts as to what is wrong with your program there."

"I think my student was wrong--we are the slaves and must do exactly what the computer as master requires!"



Clearly Dr. Koen is most verbose on his passion for computer programming. I hope one day to be as articulate and knowledgeable about my passions as he is about his own. I must now go back to the difficult work of writing and compiling my first "Hello World" C program and the many variations required of me.