Hi Terry!
Thanks for explaining stuff!
It happened to me, like everything else Ralph tells Perry. Like I noted above, I've been researching this story all my life.
Yeah, backtracking it from the FDK thread, makes perfect sense. Except the teacher. It does remind me of a story about Carl Gauß who (re-)discovered the Gauß sum formula n*(n+1)/2 as a nine-year-old in math class. His teacher was not amused when he was done summing up 1..100 without taking hours to do it.
attractive woman - really inappropriate?
In today's workplace, at least as portrayed in television (and sometimes news articles about PC culture in corporations), yeah, some things you don't mention or it can be considered sexual harassment. I guess, probably anything that's subjective is taboo these days and since attractiveness is in the eye of the beholder, that one's out. So yes, in today's workplace, Lois could probably get offended by being remarked on as being attractive, and win the associated lawsuit. Of course, in 1998, yeah, that one would be fine.
And about so many of us being (or having been) programmers? Writing is usually a solo activity (Argh! Don't glance at Annie and Kathy!) as is writing code. We have to deal with people to find out what's needed and to get our tests validated, but between those two points there is a great deal of "thinking all by myself" time.
That's true. Of course, there's pair programming when you're a) inclined to and b) lucky enough to be able to do it regularly at work and at this point, my colleagues are quite unhappy if they have to strike out alone instead of having social interactions. So, yeah, for me coding has lost the lonesome-nerd stereotype a long time ago. But I totally get it (and fall into it often enough, too
)
Michael
