Boredom and a Whim

What do you get when you cross an engineering student and a boring materials lecture? I suppose if you asked all of the 180-odd students in the lecture theater that day, you'd wind up with at least 50 answers (the most common one being 'Nap time.")

In my case, it was a trip to the library to pick up a "Java book," as it would come to be called. This was (according to my library record) about 2 or 3 months ago. Since then, I've become obsessed with programming (or so I'm told). I stormed through Java basics, swallowed up a decent bit of SQL, and due to an assignment just last week, have powered through MATLAB.

A friend of mine today warned me about mixing work and pleasure, jokingly of course. I've gone overboard on my latest assignment, and it's because I like what I'm doing.

Why aerospace engineering, people ask (and that's not a joke, in those two months, I've been asked this many times, carrying and reading my Java, and later SQL, books at any opportunity). I don't think I could actually do programming for a living. I like it as a hobby, as a challenge. That's what this blog is for: documenting "Charlie's Crazy Computer Coding Capers," hopefully giving and getting hints and tips, and maybe some programming challenges here and there. I'll do a brief summary of my current projects:

• International Standard Atmosphere Calculator (MATLAB), for an assignment due in just a few days. I'm in the home stretch here.
• Sci-fi 'Simulation-Style' Game (Java, SQL), for fun. This was the project that started it all, originally planned as an elaborate excel file and evolving from there. Most of the SQL is complete, Java is still thoroughly in development.

Specific details to come on these later. For now, I'm open to suggestions for projects to try, languages to learn, or whatever else.