Read this today -- http://virtualdub.org/virtualdub_history.html and found it really inspiring. I started using VirtualDub in college (or was it end of high-school?). I used to rip vcd's, convert stuff etc. I also faced many audio-video problems which I overcame with difficulty after much net-surfing. Programming my way out never occurred to me, since I didn't have the required exposure. Although my engineering subject itself was Computer Science. I did do some minor stuff in Visual Basic later on tried VC++ but that was as far away from programming as cave paintings are from modern literature. Today after spending 7 years in the industry and constantly working on challenging problems in building a compiler-cum-debugger-cum-runtime for hardware design languages it feels pathetic to remember the hopelessly outdated curriculum and hopeless quality of most of our teachers. Yes, I am saying this with full conviction about Jadavpur University, Kolkata -- seen by countless Bengali parents as the foremost engineering institute in the state after IIT. We had a lot of fun in college. But we missed the joy and power of programming -- which is a very creative pursuit as well. The reason, I feel, is that we grow up equating our education to exam grades and -- later on -- job prospects. In my college we had no major insecurity of either failing exams (since the system was extremely easy-going and pro-student) or of unemployment. So we ditched our education and mugged up only the bare minimum stuff to keep us going. All was fine. Just that we turned a blind eye to what people the world over were doing with computers and the internet. Linux was virtually unknown and labs were managed by stupid (I am not exaggerating) assistants who closely monitored our use of the machines. A huge opportunity missed. Let's see if I can contribute to creating a culture of programming in our country sometime in my life!
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