Curricula ... - test-drb@ccmp.vtda.org

23 Aug 2001

...
  > I don't know how a student with a four year
degree can be called
 > a professional programmer.  It's only after 17 years of programming
 >  (with 10 years of professional experience) that I now consider
 > myself armed and dangerous.  I loved taking graduate classes as an
 > older student - it was so easy to crush the competition because of
 > the depth of experience and exposure that I had. ;-) 
...
  There is one (possibly unintentional) idea here that I
disagree with. And 
 it's that learning starts when you go to university and stops when you 
 leave (the '4 year degree'). 
Tony -

You are absolutely right, and thanks for giving me the benefit of the
doubt and not jumping all over me on it.  The part of my education that
was "formal" showed me things that I would have never known to explore
on my own.  The "informal" part is where the experience was developed.
Now that I'm older and wiser, I do a lot more of the exploring on my
own.

Oh, and BTW, I never properly thanked you for the information you shared
on the lightpens - I learned a lot out of that discussion.  Still
haven't
gone out to construct a crude one, but at least I have an idea of where
to start.  (And my soldering skills are going to have to improv
significantly.)

Mike