I'm Not Just a Programmer!
Each morning my wife and I have this ritual - of asking each other what our plans are for the day. Invariably, part of my answer is that I have some studying to do. She always thinks that I'm crazy - spending as much time as I do learning new things.

Of course, when something comes up that she needs to know, who does she ask?

Except for spending time with my two grandsons, I can think of very few things more interesting that learning something I don't already know. Science and technology, history, and cooking are high on my list right now.

My cooking interest is especially strange because I'm the very picky eater of the family. You don't need a book to list the foods I like to eat - just a few pages will do the trick!

What I like about learning to cook is trying to figure out the science/chemisty involved. Why add this, why that much of an ingredient, who thought of this, what happens if I change something - those are the parts of cooking I enjoy.

I read of a restaurant in England that hires several full-time chemists specifically for the purpose of understanding such questions. They try some very outlandish combinations to see what might become the next new popular food.

Even Cook's Magazine (and their online TV show) are spending more and more time explaining why recipes work the way they do.

Cooking - it's hasn't been just for mothers for a long time!

Oh yeah, and back to the PowerBASIC thing....

One of the most useful things about PowerBASIC is that the more you use it, the more you tend to use SDK-style programming to write your applications. PowerBASIC has the syntax of a traditional BASIC language, but it's written to rely heavily on the use of API.

What PowerBASIC apps doesn't require (thank goodness!) are the various API wrappers - such as MFC, which wrap the Windows API into C++ classes. I'd have to say that I wish I had discovered it years ago. I'd probably have weaned myself from VB6, especially when the VB.NET fiasco was put in place by Microsoft.

If you have thoughts on these topics, please feel free to let me know.

Blog History
In case you want to see more of my comments, the entire blog history is available for reading.

Personal Background
As a 57 year old retiree with 30+ years in the military electronics industry (Texas Instruments and Raytheon) I'm ecstatic that I'm now able to spend more time on my web site and on software development. I'm also having fun with this blog, which lets me speak out on topics I find interesting and important - or simply fun!