robdoherty2

Graduated with a BS in Mechanical Eng in '96.

Like a number of other commenters mentioned, folks like me who were in STEM majors all had to learn how to code in some form or another, though I don't think I ever took any classes as such. A popular joke then: "what do mechanical engineers do when they graduate?" "they learn to code and become programmers"

In my case, I had a part-time job in a lab writing programs in C++ to get various lab instruments to be remote controllable from a terminal and had to learn on the job how to do it. One of the professors in the lab gave me a copy of "Numerical Recipes in C" to help me with the C++ code I was writing. It didn't help at all!

I was also part of the generation that learned basic programming on a TRS-80 (aka "trash-80") in BASIC, then in HS some Pascal and FORTRAN in an informal computer club. My family never owned a home computer, but the school had a bunch of windowsOS machines curious students could play with.

Looking back now, it seems like I was really primed to be part of one of the first waves of professional programmers, and indeed a number of my friends did go that route. But by the time I graduated from university, I kind of hated coding! Recall that in the 90s there was no stack overflow, no google, no way to see how others might have solved the problem. If you couldn't figure out how to get something to work, you had to just grind away at it no matter how long it took.

At the time, I honestly thought whatever future there might be for professional programming I sure didn't want to be a part of it. And I also didn't think it would take over the world like it did. I left uni and I spent a number of years traveling abroad and teaching ESL before dusting off my coding skills and getting a series of coding jobs in various industries.

I am extraordinarily grateful that I learned "the hard way" how to code, but more than once I wish I had gotten my degree in CS instead of ME.

love the "Expanse" themes!

I experienced this when I lived abroad. I moved to a new country for work and didn't know anyone or speak the language well at that point. This was before the internet enabled instant communication around the world, and my new timezone was on the opposite side of the planet from my home country, so I couldn't make phone calls to family without making a plan.

In any case, for the first month or so before I started my job, I was totally alone in my apartment and didn't have any conversations in my native language (English) the whole time. I began to have imaginary conversations with loved ones, both in dreams and in waking life, very much like the kind you describe.

I am one who has always been introverted and ok being alone, but this was an extremely disorienting experience. I coped by keeping a journal. The upside was that I eventually developed an ability to not feel lonely even while alone for long periods.

It is absolutely true that adults can begin to learn piano (or any musical instrument) and reap rich rewards. And as you say the key is to set the right expectations and enjoy the sound, enjoy the process.

However, I don't agree that affordable to even high-end digital pianos will be able to approximate real acoustic pianos within 10 years in two primary areas: dynamics (being able to produce the full range of sounds from pianissimo to fortissimo) and haptic feedback (the subtle vibrations felt by the fingers and body when playing a real piano). Digital piano keybeds are getting better and better in these areas, but are just not close yet to a real piano sound and feel IMHO.

If anyone knows of any models of keyboards that prove me wrong, please share!

hey braindongle,

what is your soundcloud handle? I'd like to check out your work and add to those 8k listens! :)

(incidentally, I am patientfrog on soundcloud)

One of the reasons I got so much enjoyment from this book is that Swafford himself was a composer and described the works in great detail accordingly. The numerous anecdotes about Beethoven's life were fascinating of course too.

Does anyone know of similar biographies of other famous composers? Ones that tell stories of the composer's lives as well as give detailed analyses of their works?