... this afternoon, looking for a book on Perl, for some weekend entertainment that I'll tell you about if and when it's closer to working.
In the computer aisle, a retired gentleman approached me and asked me for advice. He did some hobbyist programming in BASIC 20 years ago, balancing his checkbook and doing calculations for a rather complicated-sounding home construction project (had to do with calculating the fluid volume in pipes).
He wanted to do some programming as mental exercise, and asked what I would recommend. I showed him the Microsoft VBasic.NET books, and Python, and PERL. Then I described the Computational Beauty of Nature, and his eyes lit up.
That was a good "neighbor moment."
Posted by alevin at November 12, 2002 05:13 PM