My Introduction to Programming. Anonymous

Whenever my grandparents visit, they take me to Barnes & Noble. My grandmother, Shasha, a strong believer in self-education through voracious reading, passed on that trait to me. On this particular trip, I spied the book “C++ for Dummies”. I grabbed it, wandered off to my favorite comfy chair, and dove in. Suddenly, Shasha interrupted me, “Time to go!” Immediately, I asked to buy the book. “Why?” Shasha asked with surprise.

Flashing back, I remembered when I got my first laptop at age nine. I used it every day at school. Very quickly, curiosity took hold, and I started thinking about its inner workings. How did it connect to the Internet? Where was data stored? Where were the programs? My half-brother Keith, a programmer at IBM, helped me start to understand. Suddenly, I had the answer for my grandmother. “Keith is programmer. He uses C++. I want to try it myself!” Shasha was skeptical. My grandfather, Papa, smiled, having worked at IBM for 30 years. That day was when I had my first inkling that computer programming was part of my DNA.

As soon as we got home, I went straight down to my basement lair to further immerse myself in the book. As I turned the crisp new pages, I felt the excitement build. The first chapter was...