-September 2006, and early October-

Larry is who I chose for my SWW advisor, and thus one of my project committee members. The advisor is also the teacher of my special “Extended Class”. This extended class, which Larry named TechKnow, is focusing on the impacts of modern technology; I figured that a class like that (and getting such an advisor on my committee) would be appropriate, considering what my project is.

Ken, our computer lab supervisor this year (his 3rd year in that position), is another obvious choice, him for the other staff member.

I told them that I’d gotten Nick for a community member, and that I was still looking for a 2nd. They were the logical choice to ask for suggestions on that. They came up with Lee Harr, someone from our city’s East high School. Lee had worked with them last year, on the programming for our FIRST Robotics team (which Larry and Ken with both advisors for). Based on my first exchange of emails, he seemed interested.

I had learning C++ in mind; I have heard that’s not the best thing for a beginner. Lee suggested Python. (see http://www.python.org ). That, evidently is both very useful, and easy for programming newbies to pick up on. Perhaps, I thought, I can get to something like C++ towards the end of the year, when I’m more experienced.

A few weeks before now (October 27th), I threw myself headlong into this: downloading the Python program (the GUI), finding self-guided online tutorials, signing up for a Python mailing list mentioned by Lee, et cetera. I soon typed the immortal line:

print(“Hello, World!”)

Then I started on some slightly-more-complex programs as described by my online tutorial. This could take a number I programmed in and ask the user for a guess, replying if the guess was above the number, below the number, or correct.
This meant a lot to me. Only a few lines, but the point is that it took a user’s input, did something to it, and printed out a result. In other words, it did something functional.

In my first Easter-egg laying, I had the program print, upon the correct result, “Yes, you guessed the number. But you don’t get a prize- do I look I look like a freaking ATM machine??”
Next task there: to make the number the guess is based on a random number.