Its actually useful from the start, and is the best documented programming language. When I was a freshman College and relatively undecided on my major, I browsed through a few computer science books. I failed to get excited about the usual examples given in such books. Converting Celsius to farenheit seemed pretty useless, atleast not worth the effort of coding. I didn't see a situation where i would have to do many such conversions at once. I did not want to create calculators. There was a pefectly good working calculator on my computer already. And as I understand it they were invented over a 100 years ago. I did not see the point of creating random objects such as animals making noises that are usually taught in an effort to introduce object oriented programming. I haven't even been to the zoo in a decade. I did not want to know how many people are logged on to my computer right now. As far as I knew only one person could be logged on to my computer. Everone else had there own computer anyway. I think beginning programming courses should teach you to automate everyday tasks. computers can do anything. There are three reasons to learn computer programming. The most important reason in my opinion is to make your on life easier. A second reason is for intellectual development. So much of education is about memorizing and then forgetting and letting someone else do it better. Computer Programming allows you to think and do. Hopefully think more and do less. But this usually comes after having done more and not wanting to do that much. Computers can do whatever you can do with computers and whatever you can think of doing with computers. The interesting part is that they can do these things while you are not there, or when you are too lazy to do them yourself. As far as things you have seen people do with comupters, you can learn to do them yourself. And you can usually teach a computer to them also. The great thing is, is that computers don't yet have rights, and its not considered unethical to "use" them. Programmers are first users. Users would be better users if they were programmers.

Obama's health care information reform plan Wow ! This plan is going to make me a born again believer in the presidency. Compared to the plan to help the bankers and the automakers, this plan actually benefits patients, voters, citizens, and not to mention doctors. I would like to form a team to take a grass roots doctor proposal to Obama. I started programming a few years ago because I had major isssues with the current state of informatics that hindered my job as a radiologist. I am interested in spreading awareness and educating doctors, students, patients, everyone about the importance of programming. I believe scripting patient related information is going to be an important part of writing a pre (script) ion. I would like to assemble a team of 100-1000 programmers to help Obama implement his plan. By default, we will be volunteers. Let me know if you want to be part of it. I will announce progress on the project in this thread: http://www.autohotkey.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=39902

I use voice recognition in dictating radiology reports all the time. It actually works pretty well. It is faster than typing, particularly with voice macros. Maybe because we have a limited highly specialized vocabulary...