a new language

At my new job, I have to learn VAX assembly language, in order to port an app to C++, linux, and even (shudder) windoze. I have done a bit of assembly programming before, but never on a VAX. the VAX has instructions for handling linked lists!! can you say ‘Complex Instruction Set’??

But the reason I’m posting this is to record the feeling I’ve been getting this week as I learn the new language. It makes me think of how the guy felt who first started working with the Rosetta Stone to translate Sumerian (or whichever language it was) must have felt.

At first, it’s all gibberish. Then you start to recognize a few words. Pretty soon, you know most of the words you see, and you can start to put them together into sentences. It’s quite cool to look at the lines that were gibberish the day before and realize that you’re on the verge of comprehension.

Course I’m lucky compared to the poor sot with the Rosetta stone; I’ll be fluent in another week with my language, it probably took him months or years.

I hope I don’t dream in VAX tonight…