[smacktoward]

Anyone who finds this interesting should track down a copy of The Road Ahead (http://www.amazon.com/Road-Ahead-Bill-Gates/dp/9573231670/), the book Gates published at around the same time as this appeared. It's an interesting look at his thinking just when he was beginning to realize (very nearly too late!) that the Internet was going to be a Very Big Deal.

[colinbartlett]

I soaked that book up as a 15 year old when it was released. I remember proudly writing a report on it.

In retrospect, The Road Ahead probably had a more profound effect on me than I realized at the time. There's a great quote from the book which sums up why I took hold to computers and software more than many of the other creative and engineering related endeavors I had at the time:

"Computers are great because when you're working with them you get immediate results that let you know if your program works. It's feedback you don't get from many other things."

[Immortalin]

Lisp fan?

[wslh]

> "Computers are great because when you're working with them you get immediate results that let you know if your program works. It's feedback you don't get from many other things."

No, you get that feedback from playing music and singing.

[forgetsusername]

No what? He says "many" other things, not "any other things".

[wslh]

Cooking, dancing, playing with Legos, etc.

[fffrad]

I played music badly for years, never noticed it.

[wslh]

Did you enjoy it? The same thing can be applied to programming.

[e12e]

I think you just explained some of the VB code I've seen...