Title: The Wall

Dear Francis

I'm nineteen years old and interested in programming. (Please don't delete this email just yet! If you're busy, please just come back to this later.) I won't proclaim myself to be a master of my main language C which I started out with three years ago after a few years' break of programming in Basic. I'm not saying I'm rubbish, but I don't have any real-world experience and I was learning it as a hobby alongside more immediate concerns such as secondary school exams.

I can use C++ as a better C and learnt the very beginnings of object-orientated programming in C++. I stopped as soon as I was told to by two university lecturers who said that C++ has all the right features but does them wrong (they really should have used an adverb don't you agree?) and that I should start OOP with Smalltalk or Eiffel or Objective C.

I'm now half way through my fifth week of my computer science degree (called by the off-putting title of Computer Applications) in Dublin City University. I didn't expect the language for the first year to be Java, but C++ as it used to be. We've been told that it's most likely that we'll do C++ another year.

I don't want to be one of those programmers who don't really know their language and immediately jump to the conclusion that errors are compiler bugs when in fact these programmers don't appreciate the syntax and rules of the language. So, I would like to ask to work under someone like you during the summer break between my first and second years. Perhaps you might find it an annoyance to have a person who's just finished his first year of university working under you, but I hope you'll give me a shot.

I've bought a copy of every Dr Dobb's Journal since March 1998 and have recently started to collect Application Development Advisor and as you may have suspected EXE - The Software Developers' Magazine. I sent my application for membership of the Association of C & C++ Users last week. I'm not so sure I'd really know enough to contribute to C Vu (e.g. book reviews). What do you think?

Thanking you in advance,

Colin Paul Gloster <99563291@tolka.dcu.ie>

P.S. I passed a "Certified Course in C" from the University of Phoenix, Arizona with 86%. It was an inferior example of distance learning and to be honest it would have been an achievement to have failed.

P.P.S. I worked in London last summer and obtained a UK bank account and a National Insurance number.

I am publishing the above for several reasons most of which are obvious (actually 19 is quite old to make a first contribution to C Vu, I think 13 is the present lower limit.). You will find his first contribution to C Vu elsewhere.

I hope that at least one of you will be able to offer Colin a chance to work alongside them. Those of you who know me will realise why I do not meet the requirements that Colin is looking for.