With regards to cerebral palsy, my mind always goes back to Chuck, a guy I knew in high school in 1983-1984. His case was pretty severe, most people couldn’t understand him when he talked. He was able to drive his motorized wheelchair pretty well, but unless you looked closely, it wasn’t obvious how he did it.
Chuck was a bit older than most of the high school kids, due to his challenges. I think he was something like 27 at the time. But he was also the best programmer I have ever known.
We had Apple ][+ and Apple //e hardware in our computer lab, and one was set aside for his personal use. It had a special hardware adapter over the keyboard so that you couldn’t accidentally press two keys at once.
Watching Chuck write a program was wild. His hands would wave around in the air for a minute or so, and then somewhere in there you would hear a “chunk” sound. That sound was him hitting a key on the keyboard. He had a 100% success rate of hitting the key he wanted, every time. Because editing a file would have been too painful for him.
Chuck’s programs were also perfect. They did exactly what needed to be done, no more and no less. And you couldn’t shorten them by a single character, because otherwise the functionality would have been lost.
Chuck spent a hell of a lot of time thinking about his programs before he ever sat down in front of the keyboard. By the time he got there, the program was already completely written in his mind. And it was completely debugged. I think he was the only person to get a perfect score on every test and every program in the computer science class that year.
Over the time I knew him, it became easier for me to understand what he was saying. Towards the end of that time, if Chuck and I were in the room at the same time, his assistant was able to even take breaks to go to the bathroom. Otherwise, she had to be with him 24x7. That wasn’t something that I intentionally enabled, it just kind of developed that way, but I did find out later that she appreciated the time that we were together.
I think a lot of people looked down on Chuck due to his difficulties, but I thought he was amazing. And over forty years later, I still think that he is the best programmer I have ever known.
Chuck was a bit older than most of the high school kids, due to his challenges. I think he was something like 27 at the time. But he was also the best programmer I have ever known.
We had Apple ][+ and Apple //e hardware in our computer lab, and one was set aside for his personal use. It had a special hardware adapter over the keyboard so that you couldn’t accidentally press two keys at once.
Watching Chuck write a program was wild. His hands would wave around in the air for a minute or so, and then somewhere in there you would hear a “chunk” sound. That sound was him hitting a key on the keyboard. He had a 100% success rate of hitting the key he wanted, every time. Because editing a file would have been too painful for him.
Chuck’s programs were also perfect. They did exactly what needed to be done, no more and no less. And you couldn’t shorten them by a single character, because otherwise the functionality would have been lost.
Chuck spent a hell of a lot of time thinking about his programs before he ever sat down in front of the keyboard. By the time he got there, the program was already completely written in his mind. And it was completely debugged. I think he was the only person to get a perfect score on every test and every program in the computer science class that year.
Over the time I knew him, it became easier for me to understand what he was saying. Towards the end of that time, if Chuck and I were in the room at the same time, his assistant was able to even take breaks to go to the bathroom. Otherwise, she had to be with him 24x7. That wasn’t something that I intentionally enabled, it just kind of developed that way, but I did find out later that she appreciated the time that we were together.
I think a lot of people looked down on Chuck due to his difficulties, but I thought he was amazing. And over forty years later, I still think that he is the best programmer I have ever known.