Before I start, one thing. This is going to be a
rant node. I have to
vent, and this is the
best place.
My
aunt recently closed down her
successful
tailoring shop in
Downtown Chicago. I just found out. My
first question is:
Why? From other relatives I've heard 'she wants to
earn more money'.
Okay, I say.
What will she do? Then I hear the thing I
dread hearing the most, right up there with '
I'm Pregnant':
'I'm going to become a programmer.'
This is when my
head starts to
hurt and I have to work
very, very hard to
avoid going off on her (my
aunt). I say '
that's great and I wish you the best of luck' and shift the conversation to something else, like her
daughter (see
Horrorscopes).
What I should do is sit her down for an honest
reality check. It would go
something like this: What
OS will you program for? What
language will you program in?
Do you want to work with the
internet? Do you know how to
turn on a
computer? Can you even
type? Can you learn all this? Do you have the
will?
And then, of course if you do do those, well... Can you get a
job? Can you make
decent money? Do you
realize that
programming doesn't have
regular hours? Do you realize that whoever you'll work for will
ride your ass for all you're worth until you are a
shallow, sleepless, caffinated
wreck of who you were? Can you stay up past 11pm in your
age?
People like this really
piss me
off. Everyone thinks it's so goddamn easy to work with
computers in any, and every, way. I hate to break it to you, but if can't open MS-
DOS out of
Win9x without
formating your
HDD, then you will
NOT make a good programmer. The closest you will ever get to
successful
programing is if you get lucky and I ask you to bring me
coffee.
Now start sewing!