Man-Child Page 2
--Blaise Pascal.
French Philosopher, 1623-1662
Begin.
“Get into computers,” they told me. “If you get into computers, you will be set for life.” This was the mantra of every adult who made recommendations for my unforeseen future: Aunts, Uncles, Grandparents, all of those whose careers were either finished or firmly in place tried to save me from a life of fiscal uncertainty.
The silicone age was dawning before us, and it would be harnessed to the backs of the youth who would carry it to its fullest potential, while grossly capitalizing on financial gain of course. Much like television—and before that, radio---personal computers were rapidly becoming a household staple. Every business that had enough money to advertise on television also displayed their web page address at the bottom of the screen. Online entertainment coupled with online commerce rooted the personal computer into American Life. The common thought amongst us citizens was, “So I can watch a drunk fall down an upwards escalator for 10 minutes, then pay my bills all on the same machine? Sign me up!”
The transition from what was soon called “snail mail” to e-mail hit the elderly the hardest, most of whom were unable to grasp the concept entirely. “Well, Grandma, the message is sent electronically to the recipient’s computer; like a fax machine.”
“What’s a flax machine?”
The people who were my parents’ age were the ones teaching us elementary school students the wonders of computers. Physical Education and Music Class were cut short in order to accommodate Computer Class. At first, the women who monitored us during recess were the ones who taught us, only without the sterling whistles around their necks. They had ready-made printouts and outlines to instruct us on how to grab the reigns on the magical wonder that was the personal computer, but it seemed that the teachers/lunch aids were well behind the students right from the start. The teachers would frantically flip through their lesson plans, trying to explain the on/off button, while we kids were playing solitaire or pinball. Our minds were like sponges, and those of us who were raised alongside Atari and the Apple IIe computer were well ahead of the curve. “How could they be so clueless?” we collectively thought about our teachers. “I mean, how does this not make sense?”
By the time the Apple IIe computers were obsolete, along with Windows 3.1, I was just entering high school. Zip drives were replacing floppy disks, and “Duke Nukem 3-D” made “Oregon Trail” look like a stroll through Giggle-Berry Farm. I was able to keep up with the innovations, to enjoy them immensely, and the nagging voice of my elders echoed in my head, “Get into computers…you’ll be set for life…”
Having already taken Creative Writing (in which my epic poem, “The Skank,” received an ‘A’ grade), I opted to take a meaningful elective course that could get me started on the path to a prosperous future: Computer Programming I. The class was taught by Mr. Lanard, a middle-aged man who could easily pass as either a science teacher or a computer teacher: balding, gray mustache, tall, and gangly. He labeled himself as a “Computer Science” teacher, so I guess he was covered on all fronts of stereotyped classification.
Our class took place at high noon, right after lunch, in Computer Lab 2, which had four rows of 10 computers each facing Mr. Lanard’s high-tech dry-erase board. Mr. Lanard, already charged with the task of molding young minds for tomorrow, also had to teach two classes at once. The first couple of rows were students in Computer Programming I, while the back two rows were Computer Programming II. Comp II was reserved for students who excelled at Comp I and had a propensity for intricate computer script writing. They were being taught the computer language of C++, which was more difficult than Turbo Pascal, but had much higher capabilities, like designing simple platform video games. When eavesdropping on the Comp II students’ conversations, I was impressed and intimidated by their language. By overhearing a statement like, “No, I thought there was a typo in the algorithm, but it turned out to be a variant glitch with the A.L.U., so it was much easier to deal with by the U.I.P.,” I knew I would fail the class before Mr. Lanard even began to hand out our textbooks.
On our first day of class, Mr. Lanard told us that the world’s first computers were the size of a house and only had about 612 kilobytes of memory! At this remark, we students, sitting in front of computers with nearly a gigabyte of memory, were supposed to “ooooo,” and “ahhhh,” at the very idea. He went on to say that computers process information using binary code, which is a number system based on the numbers 0 and 1. The amount of places the zeros and ones fit are always by exponents of the number 2. 2,4,8,16,32,64…etc. “So,” I remarked to Mr. Lanard, “Nintendo was 8-bit, Super Nintendo and Sega Genesis was 16-bit, the 32x was 32 bit, the N-64 was….”
“Yes,” he said. “Video game systems use binary code as well.”
“Neato!” Enthusiasm is necessary for any student who fears getting an ‘F’ grade. It shows effort despite your blinding stupidity, and usually bumps you up to a passing grade. Still, I had no idea what he was talking about. On the first day I was lost, never to catch up.
The computer language we were to be taught was called “Turbo Pascal.” Turbo Pascal was a program designed for teaching students how to write programs, if that makes any sense. I imagined it as the green recycled paper you got in elementary school, with letters of the alphabet outlined by small dashes for you to trace over in order to get the hang of the English language, only Turbo Pascal used words like ‘variable,’ or ‘Boolean.’ When I hear the word Boolean, I don’t think of a true/false mathematical statement, but of the tear-shaped dribble of spit that comes out of Bald Bull’s mouth when you give him a jab in “Mike Tyson’s Punch-Out.” Boolean, as it sounds, could also be used as a verb, as in:
“So, what did you do when the cops showed up?”
“I Booleaned the hell outta there, that’s what!”
Pascal looked exactly like a blank text document, where you would write different formulas and algorithms, select “run file” from the drop down menu, and if you entered all the data properly the program would work.
“At the beginning of every program you write,” Mr. Lanard advised us, “you have to type Begin. This tells the computer that everything you write after Begin will be a part of your program. When you type End., that tells the computer to stop all the operations.”
Our first program assignment was a lighthearted, simple operation to introduce ourselves to the world of computer programming. Called, “Hello, World,” it was a digitized friendly wave to the computer gods, where the final result simply stated, “Hello, World,” but behind the text, the actual guts and skeletal structure of the program looked more like this:
Begin
Writeln(Hello, World);
End.
After completing the program, I looked at the kid sitting to my right, Tom. “That’s pretty simple,” I said to him. Tom was a tall, skinny, athletic kid on the Golf Team. Like Mr. Lanard, he was patient and soft spoken with a deep voice. “Yeah,” he said back to me, “This might not be so bad.”
In the days that followed, each class would begin with Mr. Lanard giving the C++ students an assignment.
“Write a program,” he’d tell them, “of a simple ‘Asteroids’ game; and don’t forget to vary the size, flight, and shape of the asteroids.”
Immediately after hearing the assignment, the back two rows of the class came alive with the rapid clicking of 20 keyboards.
“Now, for my Pascal students…”
We didn’t write many programs in Pascal at first, as much of it was vocabulary; keywords that told the computer to read a line of text, making mathematical calculations based on what numbers you typed into the program. It was easy for students like Tom and I to nod our heads when Mr. Lanard explained hypothetical situations on the dry-erase board, but when we had to put it into practice, we were lost.
A C++ student who sat behind us was willing to help us
along. He was a short, goateed Jewish Senior, and when Tom and I would ask him why our programs didn’t work, he’d take one glance at our screens, scratch his flaky beard and say, “Oh, you’re variable quotient is off. It should be designated as an integer, not a real number.” I’d give Tom a back-handed smack on the arm. “The variable quotient! Of course!”
Languages other than English were always difficult for me. Frau Eichler, my German teacher in junior high gave me a passing grade solely because I showed up every day and sought extra help when needed. If she graded me based solely on comprehension, I’d still be sitting in room 108 and reciting in German, “May have I the please bathroom pass?” The language of computers were no different to me than German or for that matter, Sanskrit, even though it was technically English. Some words performed mathematical calculations, while other words were assigned to label information that was coming in or going out of the computer.
Between the help of the C++ student (who enjoyed flaunting his knowledge to us lowly Pascal Kids), and Mr. Lanard, Tom and I hardly had to lift a finger to create the programs. Mr. Lanard understood our confusion and always had a steady, patient tone when answering our questions, no matter how idiotic the C++ students told us they were. In the long run this method of operation ended up being disastrous, but at the time it kept me from falling behind on the assignments.
In the first couple months, I was able to keep my head above water, teetering on the line between a pass and fail grade, but still somehow grasping the shape and idea of a language created by humans and only understood by computers. In March, however, I hit a philosophical wall when Mr. Lanard introduced us to the “If-Then Statement.” If there are programming code words that act as mathematical equations or grammatical statements, then imagine the “If-Then Statement” as computer-speak for Newton’s 3rd Law of Motion: For every action, there is an equal and opposite reaction.
The idea behind the If-Then statement is to write a program that poses a question, and the program will give you an answer depending on what the person types in.
“Write a program,” Mr. Lanard told us, “that asks for the different lengths of parts of a triangle and have the program determine if it is an equilateral triangle, isosceles, or scalene.”
I raised my hand. “Wait, what?”
“Well,” Mr. Lanard explained, “first you have to set up the parameters of what defines each type of triangle, then write corresponding If-Then statements based on what the user answers to the length of each side of the triangle.”
I looked at Tom. “What?”
Tom said he didn’t know, but he did actually know, and I was able to hobble along with the assignment, peeking at Tom’s screen to fill in the missing points. Cheating and not getting caught was relatively easy, since there was only one or two correct ways to write each program. However, the marking period was coming to an end, and my reserves of intelligence were running short.
“Write a program,” Mr. Lanard told us, “That determines the price of a slice of pizza. Each slice can come in three sizes, all with a different price, and can have up to 3 toppings, each topping with a different price as well.”
My head smacked the keyboard. “Tom,” I said defeatedly, my nose pressed against the letter F, suitably. “How many If-Then statements is that?”
“A lot,” he said back.
I was thinking of letting Tom in on my thought process, about how the If-Then Statement, and all subsequent programming language, melted my brain in confusion and frustration but I was too embarrassed. Tom said he was just as confused as I was concerning the pizza size and toppings, but his full screen of text tilted away from me said otherwise. The C++ student was lost in his own world of algorithms and variable quotients, the lesson plans finally catching up to his inherent knowledge of the subject. I could hear him groan every time I was about to turn around and ask him for help until finally he said to me, “Look, I can’t do all your assignments, ok? I’ve got my own shit to do.” Understood, C++ student. Understood. Mr. Lanard was constantly occupied by students making the final push for an ‘A’ or ‘B’ grade, while I hung off to the side, hoping for an F- at best. Instead of working on the assignment, I sat with my arms crossed, quietly criticizing the pizza shop owner who obviously had no idea about fixed costs, profits, or employee training. “If I worked in this pizza shop, I’d quit on the first day,” I remarked to myself. “No doubt about it. This guy sounds like an idiotic dickhead. I mean, what does the menu say, ‘Tony’s Pizza: Now With up to Three Toppings’?”
June was nearing, and by the time I was about 4 lessons behind, I decided to have a conversation with Mr. Lanard after class. He sat at his desk in the corner of the room while I stood in front of him as the class poured out the door. I started off broadly.
“I don’t get it,” I told him.
“What don’t you get?”
“All of it. I don’t understand a lick of it.”
“I can see that,” he said. “You’re really falling behind, and you’re running out of time before the school year is over. So, just tell me which specific parts are giving you trouble and we can go from there.”
“Well, let me say that I am trying. I mean, I even bought a copy of Pascal to install on my home computer so I could work on it at home.” That was true. I bought it off of Ebay for 25 bucks, and it came on six floppy disks. The problem was that instead of catching up on my programming work, Pascal became more of an insult generator, creating programs that gave it a personality closely resembling Don Rickles.
Are you trying to write a program?
Yes.
You just pissed away 25 dollars, you big nosed douchebag.
Or:
Hey, is this Mike Jenkins?
Yes.
Why don’t you get a horse and live in the mountains and not bother anybody. You’ve got a personality like a dead moth.
“How does a computer program work?” I asked.
Mr. Lanard looked at me cautiously and said evenly, “I explained that on the first day…”
“Yes, I know, but the more you taught, the more confused I became. Like when you type, ‘Begin.’”
“Right,” he said, “Writing ‘Begin’ tells the computer that everything after that is part of the program you created.”
“Yeah, but how does the computer know what ‘Begin’ means? Isn’t there a program inside the program that tells the computer what ‘Begin’ is and what it should do in case it is written?”
He shut his eyes in frustration. “What? No, it’s not…”
“And for all the code words, like ‘writeln’ or ‘readln,’ aren’t there If-Then statements inside the program that tells the computer that if ‘writeln’ is written, then it should write a line of text? But then, even if there is a program behind the program of Pascal, what is controlling that program?”
“No, no,” he said. “You’re over-thinking it. It doesn’t work that way. The program is based in binary code.”
“Yeah, but what program reads the binary code? Isn’t there a program that says if ‘00010’ is written, then writeln ‘B’ or whatever? I mean, what program reads and processes each one and zero?” I felt like I was asking who God’s mother was.
“There is no program. It’s fed directly into the processor.”
“Well, then what controls the processor? What regulates it? How does it know what information it’s receiving?”
Mr. Lanard’s face reddened. “It just does!”
He stayed silent for a moment, gathering himself. “Look,” he said, “I can see how confused you are, so just do what you can with the amount of time we have left, ok? Now, can you make it to your next class on time, or do you need me to write you a pass?”
In my education that followed, through the rest of my formative years, I read the works of Nietzsche, Kierkegaard, Sartre and Kant (to name a few), and I was able to follow and perceive each of their ideas when it was explained by a professor, but Turbo Pascal changed my way of t
hinking more than anything else. Even though I was pushed through the system with a grade of D+ (Or C--), I see the code everywhere. Pulling up to a red light, for example, my car stopping on the white strip on the road that reads the information of the weight of my car, registers it as a vehicle, tells the light on the other side of traffic to switch from green to yellow to red, and when it turns red, then my light turns green. Like Neo in the final scene of the Matrix when he looks down the hall and sees his world written entirely in code, only instead of numbers and symbols, I see my future financial gain; line after line of question marks, having been given just enough information to know how the system works, but not enough knowledge to comprehend it.
End.