2 The Education of a Programmer

Informed by knowledge of what is taught to prospective doctors, lawyers, or accountants, you could not be faulted for picturing my computer science education at Princeton as devoted to instruction on how to design software, reporting on experiments with different languages and methodologies, relaying tips for corralling elusive bugs and hard-to-pinpoint slowdowns, and in general having the faculty impart their combined wisdom on software engineering to the eager assemblage of students.