What's a cubit?

If you haven't heard Bill Cosby's standup skit about Noah, you are missing out.Truly a fine piece of comedy.

I had my first day at Sandia yesterday. The first few days are full of training, mostly stuff like ethics, safety, and procedural things. But, now, I'm on to some real work. This summer, I'll be learning Python (a programming language, for those unfamiliar) and using it to run some tests etc on the program. The program I work on is called Cubit (though if you lined it up 300 long, 50 wide, and 30 high, I don't think it'd be comprable to an ark). It is written in C++ and Python. I learned some C++ last year, but not much. Between then, I took a class on Java, which was very helpful to solidify programming concepts, but now I have to start translating syntax. Joy.

Computer programming is very cool stuff. Very logical, methodical, you can do many amazing things with it. When you finally get something to work that you have programmed is a cool feeling. A feeling of creation, almost. You have created this program out of nothing that does what you want it to do. (Now if only we, God's creations, did exactly what he wanted us to do! see Helaman 12, starting in verse 7.) Programming is very useful in the world and a valuable skill to have.

But I don't enjoy it.

I like it enough to do and learn, but I don't think I could do it for a career or job when I know other opportunities are available to me. Now, I think I'll enjoy a fair amount of learning Python and being able to work around the code and know what I'm doing, but after the initial fun is done, I'll be left to myself to continue plugging through. Often I can get in "the zone" and work or code for hours without realizing the time that is passing. But not always.

So, here's to hoping that things remain interesting at work for the whole summer. I am certainly grateful for the employment and experience. But perhaps a little Bill Cosby could freshen things up. :)