My dad learned programming as a federal employee in the 60's. He didn't discuss programming with us, but some manuals and punch cards and program listings were

My dad learned programming as a federal employee in the 60's. He didn't discuss programming with us, but some manuals and punch cards and program listings were always around the house. We also got to visit him at work a few times--think big bright cold mainframe computer rooms with tape drives spinning, printers chunking away, and lights flashing. I also remember him getting an award for making a program more efficient when working for a branch of the Defense Department. We still have the picture of my nerdly dad in his nerd garb receiving a plaque and a handshake from a brush-cut officer in full military uniform. Dad fought his part of the cold war by cataloging military surplus better, stronger, faster than it had been catalogued before. I grew up wanting to be an artist but leapt into marriage and starting a family right out of high school, and didn't take the risk of pursuing art. After starting junior college, I looked at the course catalog and felt deathly boredom emanating from every career choice except computer science. Not sure why, since I had no real exposure to computers per se. I had to buy a book just to tell me what computing and programming were. I enrolled in the business IT course, liked it, and thereafter never considered any other field. Funny, even though I started my computer education in 1982, at my school they still used punch cards, ratchety old mainframes, and loud printers--just like dear old Dad had used circa 1968. It felt right. That first year I learned Basic on a TRS-80, assembler on a System/360, and COBOL on a Burroughs mainframe. I still make my living on IBM assembler and COBOL, with no end to those technologies in sight (from my middle age standpoint, anyway). I play with Linux, bash, Scheme Java and MySQL on my own time.