Back in the 80'es I tutored at the Technical University of
Copenhagen.

We started out on punched hole cards. Nobody had experience
from home. Then the Nascom I, the Commodore VIC etc arrived.
People began programming at home. What great times - interest
and skills right from the beginning. Then RAM passed the 4K
barrier and games became possible. From one semester to the
next - no skills at all. But all very comfortable with the screen and
the keyboard.
I had a guy type in a 200 lines program at the login prompt.
Vigorously ignoring all the error messages and the alternating user
name/password/ new login screen.
He was so pissed off when it would not run afterwards.
I guess now they do COM and CORBA and ODBC and Java but
have no clue what goes on in the belly of the beast.

I don't think the definition of Engineer lasts for more than a year or
so. But I do recognize the personality.

Last week I was back at TUD. A guy in too short brown pants is
standing next to his car, ready to perform the ritual with the Keyfob.
My car was standing next to his, and I was coming down the stairs
from the library.

I told my companion (also an engineer) to pay attention  - and at
the exactly right time I pressed my keyfob so that my car opened
at the same time.

Do I really need to tell the rest of the story ??

I DID notice that the girls had become prettier. When I studied
there, the theory was that the girls came from the farms, way out
on the west coast of Denmark, where the farms are very far apart.
A girl getting into her mature age, ready to marry, would wear her
best clothes and go stand by the road, waiting for her prince. When
the color had rained out of the third set of clothes she would join
TUD.

Kent

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