I couldn’t have been less interested. The pedagogical approach was entirely vocational. Just as my French and Spanish courses revolved around hypothetical trips to Paris or Madrid (like I was going to get there any time soon), my programming courses were filled with unlikely scenarios that read like a cross between an inter-office memo and a GRE logic problem: “You own a small hardware store in Schenectady. Write a program that will display items in your inventory sorted in such and such a way, but not screwdrivers on Tuesdays when the moon is full.” —The Pedagogy of Programming (MGK)