Steve writes:


"I've a friend in his late 70s who was a bit in that froth... he graduated MIT 
around 1963 with a degree in Architecture but a hankering and aptitude for 
programming (nearly failed his Architecture degree because of all the time he 
spent in the computer lab)..."


https://www.nytimes.com/2017/06/04/technology/obituary-jean-sammet-software-designer-cobol.html

"In the early 1950s, the computer industry was in its infancy, with no settled 
culture or rigid career paths. Lois Haibt, a contemporary of Ms. Sammet's at 
IBM, where Ms. Sammet worked for nearly three decades, observed, "They took 
anyone who seemed to have an aptitude for problem-solving skills - bridge 
players, chess players, even women."

Among these aptitudes I would certainly select for the individuals that had the 
right priorities and didn't leave the computer lab for mere lectures and 
classwork!  How else can one develop the proper skills?    (Oh, I suppose there 
are impressionable young people on this list who I should not contaminate with 
these subversive ideas.)

Marcus

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