Computing Educators Oral History Project:

"The instructor ... says 'There are too many people in this class, and it's an extremely difficult course, so if you are not a star programmer, don't take this course... [I]t has the hardest programming projects. If you're not a star programmer, do not take this course' Well, you can imagine... [How can you make Maria do anything? You tell her she can't do it. I went up to [him] at the end of the class and I said "...I've never programmed, but I'm willing to work really hard, and I'm going to take this course." He looked at me and he said "You're going to fail; you don't have a hope in hell of getting through this course." [T]he whole class was writing a ...concurrent operating system and making it work. We had the first one in the class that actually compiled and operated correctly!" Link to this audio snippet in new window

"This is I think really becoming a recurrent theme in my life by now. Every time I've taken a job, I thought I understood what I was getting myself into, I thought I understood that when I went to Oakland, I thought I understood that when I took the job teaching at the University of Toronto. I have to tell you, teaching that compilers course was incredibly hairy. I thought I knew what I was doing when I went to IBM, and I thought I knew what I was doing when we moved to UBC. Every single time, when I've gotten there, I have found that the reality was so far different from what I had expected." Link to this audio snippet in new window