The intellectual property situation is bad and getting worse. To be a programmer it requires that you understand as much law as you do technology.
Real programmers can write assembly code in any language.
It is practically impossible to teach good programming to students that have had a prior exposure to BASIC: as potential programmers they are mentally mutilated beyond hope of regeneration.
My duty as a teacher is to train educate future programmers.
It always helps to be a good programmer. It is important to like computers and to be able to think of things people would want to do with their computers.
Few companies that installed computers to reduce the employment of clerks have realized their expectations... They now need more and more expensive clerks even though they call them 'operators' or 'programmers.'
You can measure a programmer's perspective by noting his attitude on the continuing vitality of FORTRAN.
I think of it as a good opportunity to let in particular school kids know that this job and other interesting jobs in science and engineering are open to anyone who works hard in school and gets a good education and studies math and science. And that it's not just for a select group of people.