-First Committee Meeting [actually occurred Oct. 30th]-

I made it back to SWW well before 4, as I expected. Not much preparation really, just moving 7 desks into a circle. Wouldn’t start Nick’s coffee yet, because he wasn’t here yet, and I know what coffee people think of cold coffee…

All my previous contact with Lee had been via email, so it was cool to actually see the guy in personal. [Alternately, that’s one thing I’ve liked about the project so far – since it’s computer-based, communication can be done via computer, so there’s no need for a plethora of real-world meetings, which can be a pain/inconvenient to set up.]

I’ve wondered what helpful input students could possibly have on a topic where they probably aren’t much farther advanced than I am. There’s a lot of things I’m wondering about, really. I, well, have not done this before. (Granted, I’ve absorbed smatterings of advice from previous seniors.)

Nick was late, no coffee for him after all. (Larry didn’t want me to disrupt the meeting any further to get it ready, which made perfect sense.)

I knew coming in to the meeting that a major purpose of it would be to refine what my project would actually entail. My original plan was to get established in Python somewhat for its own sake, but also as a springboard for learning other languages. Nick suggested that learning one language REALLY well was better than dabbling in a bunch. I also was considering a research paper on the history of computer programming in general, it was suggested to narrow that to the history of Python, with me perhaps adding short appendixes on related topics that I was interested in.

That brought up Ada Lovelace / Charles Babbage / Babbage Engine. “I will not make any crude jokes about someone who shares a last name with Ada…” Nick most noticeably understood what I was talking about. Good. I really do need to stop being an immature wisecracker at times. Lee suggested that I even code a Python emulator of the Babbage Engine, assuming that such a program doesn’t already exist. Niice.

“I’m nerdy in the extreme // I’m whiter than sour cream…”
Yankovic 12:1, err, the first song from Weird Al's 12th album. (White & Nerdy)
^And proud of it.

I was wondering what input students could provide (see above), and John Chiu came up with one really good suggestion, but I can’t seem to remember what it was…I have a very good long-term memory. Anyway, coming out of this meeting, I thought that the various suggestions I received all made tremendous sense, and were all things that I probably wouldn’t have thought of myself. Perhaps that’s the purpose of advisory committees in general. Also, I’m left with even more enthusiasm to do project work…whether that translates well into large amounts of project work in the near future remains to be seen.